A campaign has reached about 95 percent of its goal to recruit up to 3,000 volunteers to place flags on May 25 at Florida National Cemetery at Bushnell, where more than 120,000 veterans and their spouses are buried.
Members of the Puc Puggy Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution had an opportunity to donate to the effort or volunteer at the group’s meeting Friday at the Saddlebrook Recreation Center. Free T-shirts are offered to donors.
Other DAR organizations also are participating in the Flags for Fallen Vets program, which will place flags at several veterans’ cemeteries around the nation.
The Puc Puggy Chapter also heard a presentation by Joan Hutter, vice regent and program chairwoman, on the Tomassee DAR School in South Carolina, which provides a residential program for children of families in crisis.
Florida DAR chapters support a cottage at the school which currently houses seven girls. Hutter said about 100 students ages 5 to 18 attend the school, which also offers an Aftercare Program.
Students receive full boarding scholarships, which cover educational and personal expenses, or annual boarding scholarships of $500 or more.
“Some of these children have never been to school before because they’re from the backwoods of the Blue Ridge Mountains,” Hutter said.
The chapter also will sponsor a genealogy workshop on June 11 to help DAR members trace their family backgrounds.
The Puc Puggy Chapter was named after William Bartram, a Quaker botanist in central Florida who discovered a flowering bush he named after Benjamin Franklin. The Seminole Indians called him Puc Puggy, which means the flower hunter.
With 175,000 members in 3,000 chapters, the national DAR, founded in 1890, is a women’s service organization that works to promote patriotism, preserve history and improve education. To join the DAR, a member must have a patriot in their ancestry from the American Revolution as well as three generations of first marriages that preserve the lineage.
