KILLEEN, TX — The holiday season may now be a distant memory, but the spirit of giving never goes out of season.
Nearly 8,000 wreaths lay nestled in front of crosses that line the serene hills of Central Texas Veterans Cemetery.
Jean Shine, and an army of thousands of volunteers, spent the days leading up to Thanksgiving making sure every cross had it’s own wreath.
The project took a lot of time, but Jean said it was well worth it.
“When we lay a wreath, or retrieve a wreath or visit out here, we do it in honor of all veterans across the nation,” Shine said.
Now that the holidays are over, it will take another army of volunteers to collect all the wreaths.
“We say a short prayer. We won’t have a big ceremony at all and people will just come pick up the wreaths and put them on the poles and we literally count how many go on each pole,” Shine said.
Wreath retrieval has been pushed back to Sunday at 2pm due to the weather. Busses will start at 1pm from the Central Texas A&M campus.
Buses will transport volunteers from A&M Central parking lot to the cemetery where they will work while taking in the view and remembering those who have been laid to rest there.
