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LEWISTON — The city is seeking volunteers to place almost 7,500 flags at veterans’ gravestones in city cemeteries for Memorial Day.
The state passed a law in 2001 that requires municipalities to buy and place individual American flags at the gravestone of every veteran buried in each cemetery in the city or town. The flags must be in place for Memorial Day each year. Lewiston has 13 cemeteries and places almost 7,500 flags. All work is done by community volunteers
For many of the smaller cemeteries, the abutting neighbors usually place the flags each year. For the two largest cemeteries – Riverside and St. Peter’s – there are service organizations that have adopted these cemeteries over the years and take care of placing the flags for the city.
The groups welcome volunteers to assist them at the following locations:
St. Peter’s Cemetery, Switzerland Road, 10 a.m., Saturday, May 22, rain or shine. Meet at the mausoleum. Jerry Dewitt is the contact person for that day and the L/A Veterans Council is the coordinator. There are approximately 4,000 flags for this location.
Riverside Cemetery, 192 Summer St., 9 a.m. Saturday, May 29. The Knights of Columbus are the coordinators. Contact is Leo Baillargeon, 207-577-7424. There are approximately 1,600 flags for this location.
The plan is to assign teams of 5 to 10 volunteers to an area of the cemetery and to cover the cemetery in a grid fashion in order to not miss any stone. There is no master list of veterans buried at the cemetery, so volunteers will need to walk each row of stones and read the inscription on each grave site. If military service is listed on the stone, a flag will be placed there. This is a fairly time-consuming process so many volunteers are appreciated.
Other information:
* Face masks are optional based upon the comfort level of the individual volunteer;
* Work gloves are optional but encouraged, volunteers should bring their own hand sanitizer;
* Social distancing will be encouraged to accommodate the comfort level of volunteers;
* Instructions will be provided in groups of 10 people or less, volunteers can wait in their vehicles or off to the side until the coordinator calls them over;
* Wear sneakers or boots in case the grass is wet;
* Bring a screwdriver to use to poke a hole in the grass. It makes it much easier to place the wooden dowel of the flag into the ground if you make the hole first;
* Plan to bring a water bottle if it is a hot day;
* Bring bug spray, hat and sunscreen. Be mindful of ticks;
* Children/youth are encouraged to participate, but must be accompanied by an adult;
* Wearing company or organization T-shirts is welcome.
