Skip to main content

Davis Journal

Wreaths Across America placed at Bountiful Veterans Park

Dec 23, 2021 08:37AM ● By Tom Haraldsen

Chris Simonsen, chairman of the Bountiful Veterans Park board, admires two of the wreaths placed at the park on Saturday.

What started as a tradition in 1992 has touched the Bountiful Veterans Park. Wreaths Across America laid wreaths at the park on Dec.18, continuing a program that now visits over 1,000 cemeteries and veterans’ monuments across the nation and beyond on the third Saturday of December.

Chris Simonsen, chairman of the board for the Bountiful Veterans Park Foundation, was present when the wreaths were placed in the park this year. They will be in place through Jan. 2.

This tradition began in Harrington, Maine, where Morrill Worcester, owner of Worcester Wreath Company, found himself with a surplus of wreaths as the holiday season neared its end. Still impressed with the trip he took as a 12 year old to Washington, D.C. and Arlington National Cemetery, he realized that the extra wreaths gave him a chance to honor the country’s veterans. So that first year, with the help of Maine Senator Olympia Snowe, he made arrangements to place wreaths at Arlington on one of the older sections of the cemetery that had been receiving fewer visitors each passing year.

That kick started the program which received national attention in 2005, when photos of the stones at Arlington adorned with the wreaths and covered in snow hit the internet. It led to thousands of requests from other national and state cemeteries wanting similar tributes, as well as many others offering Worcester thanks and offering to help or make donations. Though he was financially limited, he began sending seven wreaths to every state, one for each branch of the military, and the program steadily grew from there. A non-profit 501-(c)(3) organization was formed in 2007, and a year later, 300 locations had wreath-laying ceremonies in all 50 states, Puerto Rico and in 24 overseas cemeteries. The U.S. Congress voted unanimously to name Dec. 13, 2008 as “Wreaths Across America Day,” and the tradition of the third Saturday in December was born. More than 60,000 volunteers now take part in the program each year, with over 700,000 memorial wreaths laid each December. WAA met its goal of placing 226,525 wreaths in Arlington in 2014, and has done it every year since.

Bountiful Veterans Park board members remind all visitors to be aware of slick conditions when visiting the park this winter, as black ice can form on the concrete. That hasn’t stopped tens of thousands of visitors who’ve enjoyed the park since its dedication over a year ago, an accomplishment of volunteers who raised the money and built the park completely through private donations.