Rehoboth family group seeks $17 wreath sponsors to honor every veteran in Village Cemetery Dec. 19

REHOBOTH Poppy's Crew, a Rehoboth group that began as one family's tribute to a retired Navy sailor, is asking neighbors to sponsor $17 remembrance wreaths for every veteran buried in Rehoboth Village Cemetery.

Volunteers will lay the wreaths at a ceremony open to the whole community at noon Dec. 19, National Wreaths Across America Day, the group said Monday, adding that fewer than 30 days remain to gather this year's sponsorships.

Every sponsorship brings the group closer to a wreath on each veteran's grave in the cemetery, the group said. It had also hoped to honor all the Revolutionary War soldiers buried throughout Rehoboth, but said current sponsorships do not yet allow it to expand.

How it started

The group was created in memory of the family's Poppy, a retired U.S. Navy cruiser sailor, and grew into a family effort to make sure veterans laid to rest in town are never forgotten, Poppy's Crew wrote in October. "What started as a family tribute has grown into a community effort to bring Wreaths Across America to Rehoboth Village Cemetery," the group said this week.

December 2024 was set to be the cemetery's first year in the national program, with Poppy's Crew as its founding sponsorship group, the group wrote that August, when it counted 480 veterans buried there and said the cemetery would join more than 4,200 locations across the country placing more than 3 million wreaths that year.

What $17 pays for

Every $17 contribution sponsors one wreath for a veteran's grave, according to the group, which calls its work "simple but meaningful": it raises the money and then brings volunteers together to place the wreaths, saying each veteran's name aloud as a wreath goes down to help keep that person's memory and story alive.

Its fall fundraiser, a Harvest for Heroes afternoon set for Oct. 18 at Terrydiddle Farm, was planned with bingo, raffles, food and children's activities, with the prizes and raffle items donated by local businesses and community supporters, the group wrote in October.

The cemetery

Village Cemetery, also listed as Rehoboth Historic Cemetery No. 8, sits at Bay State Road and Pond Street. The National Society Sons of the American Revolution lists 38 Revolutionary War patriots buried there in its patriot database.

When the program began in 2024, Poppy's Crew called it a steppingstone toward expanding in Rehoboth and asked anyone with a veteran buried in any of the town's historic burying grounds to get in touch so a wreath could be arranged for that grave.

How to help

Wreaths can be sponsored through the group's page at wreathsacrossamerica.org/NH0043P, and questions go to waapoppyscrew@gmail.com. In its first year the group also asked for volunteers to help with fundraising, lay wreaths at the ceremony and help clean up when the wreaths are taken down.

The ceremony and wreath laying begin at noon Dec. 19, and the group has invited the entire community. "Join us as we place wreaths, speak their names, and remember the people behind the headstones," the group wrote.

Label: Reported by us, from the town's posted records.