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Chester County Press

Wreaths Across America Mobile Unit honors veterans at Jeff D’Ambrosio Chevrolet

06/08/2021 04:16PM ● By Steven Hoffman

On Monday, June 14, the Wreaths Across America's Mobile Education Exhibit will be on display at Jeff D’Ambrosio Chevrolet at 2158 Baltimore Pike in  Oxford.

The Exhibit represents the TEACH pillar of the Wreaths Across America mission, sharing information about the veterans and those who serve our country, and how everyone can play a part in remembering and honoring them.

“We are proud to host this event,” said Mike Sockoloskie, the general sales manager at Jeff D’Ambrosio. “My father, Edward Sockoloskie, served as a marine in World War II and I am happy to do anything I can do to honor him and his service.”

The Mobile Education Exhibit will be open to the public from 10 a.m. until 6 p.m.

Chevrolet has been a sponsor of Wreaths Across America for many years, and when this opportunity came up they were delighted to participate.

“The goal of the Wreaths Across America Mobile Education Exhibit is to bring community together and teach patriotism while remembering the service and sacrifice of our nation’s heroes,” said Karen Worcester, the executive director, Wreaths Across America. “However, over the last year, in light of the current health crisis, we feel this exhibit has taken on even more meaning by providing the opportunity for people to safely participate in something that is both educational and inspiring, while supporting and giving back to the communities it visits.”

The exhibit achieves this goal by bringing the local community, veterans, active-duty military and their families together through interactive exhibits, short films, and shared stories. The exhibit serves as a mobile museum, educating visitors about the service and sacrifice of our nation’s heroes as well as serving as an official ‘welcome home’ station for our nation’s Vietnam Veterans.

This country’s veterans have served in multiple wars on foreign shores and here at home. The Normandy landings were the landing and associated airborne operations that took place on June 6, 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. It was the largest seaborne invasion in history. Many of those veterans are no longer living, and it is more important than ever to remember all of those veterans who have preserved our freedoms.

Vietnam Veterans, who did not receive the typical, warm welcome home of many veterans, will also be honored in this exhibit. Wreaths Across America is hopeful that those Vietnam  veterans will see this exhibit as an official “welcome home” station for them.

The Wreaths Across America’s Mobile Education Exhibit National Tour will make 15 stops in Pennsylvania to honor local veterans, volunteers and supporters in these communities.

When the exhibit pulls into Oxford, all veterans, active-duty military, their families, and the local community members are invited and encouraged to visit, take a tour and speak with Wreaths Across America representatives and volunteers. They can also share more about the national nonprofit, and the work its volunteers do to support our heroes and their communities year-round. 

The public tours for the Mobile Education Exhibit are free and open to the public with social distancing, sanitation and COVID-19 safety procedures in place to protect the health of all visitors, in accordance with the CDCs recommendation for large gatherings stemming from concerns surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic. Members of the media, dignitaries, veterans and other interested groups are urged to come, ask questions, share stories and experience this one-of-a-kind exhibit.

Wreaths Across America is the non-profit organization best known for placing wreaths on veterans’ headstones at Arlington National Cemetery. In 2020, the organization placed more than 1.7 million sponsored veterans’ wreaths at 2,557 participating locations nationwide. Throughout the calendar year, you can tune in to Wreaths Across America Internet Radio, 24/7, to learn more about the mission and those who support it across the country, as well as the hundreds of local charitable efforts nationwide that are funded through wreath sponsorships.

You can sponsor a veteran’s wreath anytime for $15 at www.wreathacrossamerica.org. Each sponsorship goes toward a live, balsam wreath that will be placed on the headstone of an American hero as we endeavor to honor all veterans laid to rest at noon on Saturday, Dec. 18, as part of National Wreaths across America Day.

Wreaths Across America is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization founded to continue and expand the annual wreath-laying ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery begun by Maine businessman Morrill Worcester in 1992. The organization’s mission – Remember, Honor, Teach – is carried out in part each year by coordinating wreath-laying ceremonies in December at Arlington, as well as thousands of veterans’ cemeteries and other locations in all 50 states and beyond. 
For more information or to sponsor a wreath please visit www.wreathsacrossamerica.org

The local contact in the Oxford area is Clarissa Sherrow who can be reached at: 484-645-4513.