Patriotism on display
Modern Woodmen camp and club members honor U.S. veterans

It began in early spring 1998 as a school social studies project.

Teacher Lance VanderVorst, a Modern Woodmen member from Herreid, S.D., was looking for a way to pay tribute to area veterans and teach his students the importance of civic responsibility. After months of planning, fundraising and building, the Campbell County Veterans Memorial was officially dedicated.

The black granite memorial that sits in front of Herreid School is by no means the largest or grandest memorial ever built. But thanks to the hard work of Lance and his students, and the support of community members and groups such as the local Modern Woodmen camp, it has become a source of community pride and a strong reminder of the sacrifices made by those who defend our freedom.

According to the Department of Veterans Affairs, there are more than 24.8 million United States veterans living today. Modern Woodmen members across the country like Lance and his fellow Herreid camp members display their patriotic pride by honoring U.S. veterans past and present in a number of different ways.

“Honoring veterans is really important,” says Sandy Ackerman, secretary of the Herreid camp. “We have a lot of people fighting for us right now, and I think veterans sometimes get lost in the shuffle.”

Respect for the past

Last year Sandy, Lance and other Herreid camp members installed a new ground lighting system around the community’s memorial. This project was made possible by Modern Woodmen’s Good Neighbors Program. Through this fraternal program, members perform hands-on activities to improve their communities, such as repair or beautification of a structure or the environment. Modern Woodmen reimburses camps for materials, up to $500 per project per year.

“We just wanted to help people see it better,” says Sandy. “[The new lighting] encourages people to stop and see the memorial and appreciate what has happened in the past and now.”

Just two states away in Iola, Kan., stands another veterans’ memorial wall. The community plans to reorganize the veterans’ names and extend the wall, which is positioned proudly in the downtown courthouse square. That takes money.

The local Modern Woodmen camp showed their support by raffling off a handmade patriotic quilt early in 2005. Camp members raised over $1,000 for wall expansion efforts. The money was then matched by Modern Woodmen through the organization’s Matching Fund Program.

In late 2005 and early 2006, members in Rogers, Ark., and Mountain City, Tenn., supported local veterans’ memorial wall efforts by participating in Modern Woodmen’s Plant A Tree Program. Members of the Mountain City camp planted two Norway spruce trees on either end of the Veterans’ Memorial Wall in Ralph Stout Park. Rogers camp members planted six redbud trees – one for each branch of the service – around the Veterans Wall of Honor in Bella Vista.

Through the Plant A Tree Program, camps are reimbursed up to $250 per year for tree-planting projects. “The redbud trees were expensive, so our camp members dug into their own pockets to cover the remaining balance,” says Modern Woodmen representative Ken McIntosh, who was involved in the Bella Vista project. “Members went to a lot of work for this project, but the trees look beautiful.”

Support for the present

Memorial walls are not the o