KATHERINE LACAZE PHOTO
Members of Seaside 0regon’s Cub Scout Pack 540 recently made swags and placed them at veterans’ headstones at Seaside’s Evergreen Cemetery. About a dozen of the Cub Scouts participated in the service project, which was one of the pack’s five Wood Badge projects.
Local Cub Scouts honor military veterans by placing holiday swags on headstones in Seaside cemetery.
Seaside’s local Cub Scouts made sure veterans weren’t overlooked this holiday season by placing handmade hemlock swags at the headstone of each veteran buried in the Evergreen Cemetery.
About a dozen members of Pack 540 crafted the simple but elegant swags during their last den meeting and at the group’s Christmas party in mid-December. Immediately after the party, Scouts and their families went to the cemetery, south of Seaside east of U.S. Highway 101, to place the decorations.
“We want the boys to learn good citizenship, and part of that is honoring the people that have come before them and been good citizens, and certainly some of them have paid a lot higher price than others,” said Pack 540 Committee Chairman Laurie Kautz.
Using a map provided by Stan Gandy, scoutmaster for Troop 642 and a member of Seaside’s American Legion Post 99, the boys and their families identified the graves of about 90 veterans buried in the cemetery.
Kautz said it is typical for the Cub and Boy Scouts to place flags at the veterans’ headstones for Memorial Day. She decided to do something similar for the holidays.
While wreaths are more common for veterans’ gravesites, Kautz opted for a simpler variation so the first- through fifth-grade Cub Scouts could to the project with little help from the adult leaders.
“We went with swags, because they’re a little easier, because I wanted a lot of the work to be done by the boys to get them involved and give them a sense of ownership in the project,” she said.
Pack leader Jason Schermerhorn provided boughs of hemlock for the swags, which were tied with wire and adorned with red felt ribbons.
Although some Scouts initially had difficulty constructing the swags and tying the bows, they seemed to enjoy the project, and Kautz said she’d like to make it an annual event. The scout leaders let the Scouts practice creativity and freedom when making the swags.
“We wanted it to be something the boys did, and not something the adults did just so they could say the boys did it,” Kautz said, adding, “We wanted it to be kid art.”
She likes to pick service projects with a local emphasis so the Scouts can see the results of what they’ve done. When the projects involve honoring veterans or active service members, they provide an opportunity for the Scouts to learn about good citizenship, one of Scouting’s cornerstones.
Kautz organizes as many service projects as possible so Cub Scouts with busy schedules have numerous opportunities to participate when they can. The pack has 19 members, and about 12 participated in the holiday project in some way.
Hunter Kautz, a third-grade Cub Scout and Kautz’s son, said making the holiday swags was one of his favorite service projects so far. He especially enjoyed taking the ornaments to the cemetery and placing them at the gravesites.
When asked why he thinks it’s important to honor veterans, he replied, “So their families don’t think they didn’t do a good job.”
The swags remained at the headstones for about two weeks before Schermerhorn collected them in time for the boughs to be contributed to Troop 642 and the Necanicum Watershed Council’s annual tree recycling event Jan. 4 and 5.
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