ROCKLAND – Every year, a tractor-trailer truck, painted with patriotic designs on the cab and a scene of Arlington National Cemetery on the trailer’s sides, visits towns across the country raising awareness – and some donations – about the Wreaths Across America mission to honor and decorate the graves of the nation’s fallen in uniform.
Last year, the truck was visited 28 western states.
On Saturday, Nov. 18, it rolled into Rockland to take part in an annual Veterans’ Symposium at 110 Fitness, 200B Weymouth St. location The following day, the team was scheduled for a town near Portland, Maine at a Walmart distribution center, followed by stops in a couple other Maine communities before the other team took the driver’s seat after Thanksgiving.
Every year, on the third Saturday in December – this year on Dec. 16 – it makes its way, as part of a convoy, to Arlington to decorate military graves there. But that isn’t the only mission of the program.
It’s the most frequently asked question by people visiting the truck.
“Every grave that a veteran is laid to rest around the world [is decorated through the program],” Wreaths Ambassador Robert Z. Easley, who is the son and grandson of veterans, said. “We make, we produce and provide the wreaths with the sponsorships that come attached to those and we send them out on the convoy to coordinators and sponsor groups. That way they and their volunteers can take them out to the graves that they’re managing.”
The wreaths are made in Columbia Falls. Maine.
Easily stressed these are not Christmas wreaths and are not purchased – they are sponsored.
“That’s always key,” Easley said. “We are a 501 (c)3 organization and have to be very careful with verbiage.”
“This is the coolest thing,” said one woman touring the trailer’s displays before a group of Hanson Scouts listened to a video presentation on the program and a special “Welcome Home” ceremony for a Vietnam veteran who attends the Rock Steady Boxing program at 110 Fitness.
“Oh, no. What did I do wrong?” Chip Maury said on being summoned to the small stage build on one side of the trailer’s interior.
“Nothing yet,” quipped Wreaths Driver/Ambassador Richard Schneider, who is a Navy veteran. “This gentleman here is a Vietnam veteran. … When they came home, they didn’t get welcomed home, so we’re going to welcome him home.”
A government program provides a proclamation letter signed with the name of one of the presidents of a veterans’ preference between the last three, thanking them for their service and welcoming them home, a pin from the Department of Defense and a challenge coin from Wreaths.
“That’s really something, isn’t it? Signed by my favorite president,” Maury said, pointing to the signature of Barak Obama on his welcome home letter after the ceremony. “This is impressive. I had no idea he was going to [do this].”
“We always stress we are non-political, we’re non-denominational,” Easley said after the brief ceremony. “That’s what they fought for, that’s what’s important.”
The truck is invited by coordinators or sponsor groups to help coordinators generate interest in sponsoring more wreaths for their cemeteries they help manage and maintain as well as drawing more interest in getting more coordinators.
“I want to be very hesitant when I quote a number like this, but we’re looking at more than 20 million vets like this laid to rest around the world and the mission is to get a wreath placed on every veteran’s grave around the world,” Easley said. “We do wreaths [for those buried at sea] that are made just a little bit differently – instead of the metal ring that holds the bouquets in place, it is a biodegradable ring.”
Right now, the truck is the only one the organization has, staffed with two crews of two that switch out every two to three weeks.
“We’ve been on a waiting list for two years and were finally able to secure it for the week after Veterans Day, which is awesome,” 110 Fitness owner and Rock Steady Boxing instructor Brett Miller said of the Wreaths Across America team’s visit to his annual Veteran’s Outreach event. “This is all about awareness for them – how the Wreaths Across America movement happened.”
Wreaths’ Easley confirmed that the waiting list is two years “and waiting.”
“This is the only truck we have,” he said. “It’s two teams, but we cycle out every two to three weeks.”
The veterans’ event, originally slated to be held in Weymouth and was to also include a parachute team, but rainy weather forced the change in location and program.
“We’re making do with what we have, we’re an adaptive group and that’s what we do,” Miller said of the 110 Boxing gym’s programs, which also include the use of yoga, strength training and other fitness methods to help Parkinson’s patients improve their quality of life. He also organizes other awareness and outreach programs on the disease and is an ambassador for both the Michael J. Fox and Davis Phinney foundations.
“We have all kinds of folks representing veterans’ groups as well as organizations for people with Parkinson’s – the Michael J. Fox Foundation and the Boston VA,” Miller said.
The gym has been in operation in Rockland for seven years, and Miller has been training and treating people with Parkinson’s as a physical therapist for more than 15 years. Veterans’ programs are conducted every week at the facility as the Boston VA holds weekly boxing classes, with one or two big events held every year, of which the Nov. 18 symposium was one.
Some of those representatives were personally familiar with Parkinson’s, as well.
“My brother in-law has Parkinson’s and works out at this gym,” VA Outreach Coordinator for the Cape and Islands Outreach Specialist Adam Doerfler said about attending the event at Rockland’s 110 Fitness. “I went to the [annual fundraising] gala that they had and Brett mentioned it … and I said, ‘I work at the VA, do you mind if we come to provide some veterans’ outreach?’”
Doerfler attended the event to fill veterans in on a federal PTSD readjustment mental health clinic, which includes services for combat veterans, active duty soldiers, victims of military sexual assault, individual and couples counseling.
“I help victims sort of connect the dots on VA services and benefits,” he said. He was joined at the event by colleagues from the Boston and Brockton VA offices.
Plymouth County Suicide Prevention also staffed a booth at the symposium, as it’s estimated that an average of 22 veterans are lost to suicide every day.
“It’s a very important cause to me,” said Jenny Babcock. “I’m a loss survivor – I lost someone to suicide. I want to be out there helping people.”
Her organization also teaches suicide prevention classes at Hanson’s Calvary Baptist Church. Among the informational brochures and giveaways Babcock had on hand were gun locks as well as information on the national suicide prevention 988 number.
“We have a lot of stuff that we put out, but I kind of tweak it to what the event is,” she said. Babcock and her booth partner on Nov. 18 are both trainers for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention as well, which falls under the Mass. Department of Public Health, which allows them to go out to communities to conduct free trainings.

HANSON – When Scout Jack Rasa sets a goal, he meets it.
He began in Scouting at age 6, becoming a Boy Scout at age 10 in Lakeville, where his family then lived, and had the goal of being an Eagle Scout in mind from the start.
He’s attended two Scouting High Adventures on his own, joining with a Lynnfield Troop to achieve one – a trek in Maine that included 50 miles of hiking and canoeing, as well as climbing Mt. Katahdin. The other attending the Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico and he is on a waiting list for Sea Base in Florida next April.
“You’re on a ship for week,” he said. The ship is equipped with a lab and will be studying the coral reefs. While there is no merit badge linked to High Adventures, they’ve lived up to their name for a youth who has looked forward to a career as an environmental police officer since he was a kid.
Attaining the rank of Eagle Scout, however, is a whole other level of challenge.
There are 14 merit badges that are required – as well as a minimum of seven others, totaling 21 – for a Scout to obtain before 18, in addition to an Eagle project, to attain that rank. Jack has 60 merit badges. There are many levels of leadership roles and other requirements (camping nights, knife handling, fire safety, etc…to achieve during one’s Boy Scout years, too. Only .04 percent of Scouts achieve the rank.
Jack has also attended 16 different summer camps, averaging three per summer from Maine to New Hampshire, Connecticut, Vermont and Rhode Island as well as New Mexico.
The Troop 38 Hanover Scout has been something of a merit badge machine in his 11 years of Scouting, which made it difficult at times to find a troop that didn’t view him as “too active.”
“He’s done a tremendous amount of activities thanks to the opportunities Scouting and assertive leaders have offered him,” said his mom, Pam Rasa.
“Jack has done so many things,” she said. “I think he earned every single belt loop that they had in Cub Scouts. [His Scoutmaster] said, ‘He’s earned everything, he just has to get his project done.’”
He’s fundraised by emptying bottle, can and two-litre plastics bins at the Hanover transfer station. He organized fellow Scouts to sort and bag them then place the bottles and cans in a canister which is taken to the redemption center directly from the Hanover transfer station.
Jack is equally driven in his education and career goals, planning to enter the Coast Guard after graduating from Bristol County Agricultural High School in Dighton and then to pursue a career in environmental policing.
Among the things that made Bristol Aggie a good fit was that Mass. Environmental Police work with the Natural Resource Management major to protect endangered turtles in Massachusetts and use the school as a go-to for confiscated reptiles. 
Jack also hopes to attend Mass. Maritime Academy to major in environmental management.
“The environmental police have programs with both schools,” he said. “I’ve been wanting to do environmental policing since I was 7.” As a kid, he enjoyed watching the reality show, “Northwoods Law.”
Service has also been important in his life. It was, in fact, his brother’s service in the Army, including a deployment to Afghanistan, that inspired his Eagle project – doing some maintenance at the Hanson American Legion Post on Richardson Road not far from where his family lives. Craig Sutherland, his brother, had served in the Army National guard for six years including his deployment.
“Because of my brother, I think that I want to do the military so that I can also serve my country, and show respect for him,” he said. “I hope to do aviation in the Coast Guard and probably work with helicopters.
Work underway
He’s already replaced a section of stockade fence, and plans to have the flagpole repainted – with the help of the Hanson Fire Department – clearing around a back fence, replacing a ramp to a storage shed and having the gutters cleaned.
In fact, he had spoken to a gutter company and asked him to do the work at the Legion, as Eagle Scout candidates are not expected to do the actual labor themselves, but to supervise the work of others – in other words, exhibiting leadership.
As it happened Legion Junior Vice David George, who also serves on the Hanson Select Board, had a gutter service coming that afternoon, Pam Rasa said.
“[George] said he could have credit for that because it’s something we needed to get done,” she said.
“He can do just about whatever he wants, but I don’t think it’s a good idea for anyone to be on a ladder or on the roof, as that is a huge liability,” George said. “Jack will be receiving credit for all projects.”
That could include the roof itself.
Aaron Blinn, a veteran and owner of Frontline Fence, on Charles Street in Hanson and “made this happen for Jack,” Pam said, suppling the materials and put the fence in at no cost. The gutter guy did it for free, as will George with his brand-new sign. 
They are looking for a local mason, who is also a veteran, to help point the firepit at the post, too.
Jack has his best friend, Caleb Clemens, and his truck coming to help move the debris out back, and the Troop will put in a day’s work to complete the rest, probably the Friday or Saturday after Thanksgiving, weather permitting.
The sign replacement on Jack’s list for repainting and replacing the decals, which are worn, yellowed and peeling, was another task George, who owns a sign company was going to do, so he said the Scout could help him put it in and receive credit.
“He was just really accommodating,” Pam Rasa said. “He said, ‘Anything else you think of, and I so appreciate you being here and doing this.’”
Help from friends
Pam said George’s David’s ownership of a sign business made an unexpected gift fall into their laps and Jack had filed the paperwork listing the gutters and sign before David stepped forward gifting him with the gutter cleaning and sign replacement. While the medallions are not on Jack’s list, but he is working to get them done, also.
She also knows a roofer who can help with the Legion’s need for maintenance work the organization estimates would cost them about $10,000 for the materials they need. The Legion has all the volunteer labor they need for that project.
“That’s not on Jack’s list either, but I’m going to make a call and see if we can get a really killer deal on materials,” she said. “This is just a great project and its giving back to Hanson where we live.”
The work needs to be done by the end of the year, because Scoutmaster Gary Martin has moved Jack’s Eagle Court of Honor up to Jan. 6, 2024.
“I’m thinking of just scheduling a couple of dates to just get stuff done, because no matter who comes, I’ll be there and I can start some work,” Jack said.
One more thing on the holiday list of a can-do Scout.