Volunteers prepare Locust Grove Cemetery for Memorial Day

BREWSTER – American Legion Columbia Post 97 Auxiliary members Kim Patterson and her daughter Kaylin were out early last Friday morning, May 27, placing more than 200 crosses on the headstones of veterans interred at Locust Grove Cemetery. The pair started early so all the small white crosses made by the Brewster High School shop class would be in place for the next part of the Memorial Day preparations.

About a dozen Brewster High School sophomore and junior student volunteers with teacher Jake Johansen arrived on the scene at 9 a.m. to complete the process of setting the crosses into the ground and inserting miniature American flags into holes drilled into the tops of the crosses. Patterson explained the step-by-step process to the volunteers and then gave each an artificial red poppy in observance of National Poppy Day.

With the requisite tools - iron bars to punch holes in the ground and stout hammers to tap the crosses in place – the students dispersed in teams to complete the morning’s assignment. The crosses and flags remain through Memorial Day ceremonies and are then removed and stored for use again the following year.