In honor of Memorial Day, May 27, more than 70 local girl scouts and their parents joined dozens of volunteers as they participated in the annual ‘flagging of the graves’ at Woodlawn Cemetery. The volunteers spent the days leading up to Memorial Day placing American flags at the graves of more than 9,000 U.S. service members.

 

On Saturday, May 18, girl scouts from Troop 1095, 1096 and 1185, converged on Woodlawn Cemetery, located at 4199
Webster Avenue on the Norwood / Woodlawn border as they joined in the annual tradition. Jennifer Mahoney of Troop 1185, based at Our Lady of Assumption Church in Pelham Bay, said, “This is about my tenth year doing this. The girls come every year around Memorial Day weekend and they give us maps and flags and we pay homage to our fallen veterans.”

Mahoney continued, “It teaches the girls map skills and respecting people who fought for this country.” She added, “They give us a number of flags and we don’t stop until we mark all of the graves. It’s teaching them a lot about our history right here in the United States.”

 

At a different section of the massive, 400-acre cemetery was Lisa Hom, also from Troop 1185. Her group was also joined by members of Troop 1039, based at P.S. 11 in the Highbridge section of the borough along with the young girls of Troop 1331, based in the Allerton section. Hom, who began ‘flagging’ in 2015, told Norwood News, “Today we have about 30 scouts and parents, so we have a total of 50 people here and a lot of first timers here to come out and pay respect to the veterans on Memorial Day weekend.”

 

As the scouts placed flags at the graves of deceased vets, she added, “They learned how to navigate using the maps and paying respect to the veterans.”

Woodlawn Cemetery’s executive director Meg Ventrudo said of the event, “This year, we had over 60 girl scouts come out and help us do the flagging, which usually…. we’ve had smaller groups and this year, it’s been a great event with the troops, Brownies up to girl scouts.” Ventrudo added that James Hendon, commissioner of the New York City Department of Veterans’ Services had offered some words of encouragement to the young volunteers before they fanned out across the cemetery.

 

“[Hendon] gave us words about the importance of honoring those that have served our country and it’s just Woodlawn’s great honor to do this every year,” she said. According to Ventrudo, a group of boy scouts, as well as a group of veterans from Consolidated Edison and Arch Capital, also participated in the flagging event this year. She said they joined several families of those buried at the cemetery as they all took part in the massive search for and flagging of the veterans’ graves.

Woodlawn Cemetery started the flagging tradition 22 years ago after the attacks of September 11th, 2001. At the time, only 200 graves of U.S. service men and women had been identified according to officials, whereas today, nearly 9,000 veterans have been identified. The various veterans buried at Woodlawn fought in every major battle starting with the Revolutionary War, according to its officials.