Havre de Grace’s new Gold Star Family Memorial will be dedicated Sunday afternoon in Concord Point Park.
The ceremony will begin at 2 p.m., and the public is invited to attend. The park is at the intersection of Concord and Lafayette by the Concord Point Lighthouse.
The monument honors and recognizes the sacrifices of families that have a lost a loved one who died serving in the armed forces of the United States.
A national movement to erect Gold Star Families Memorials around the country was initiated several years ago by World War II Medal of Honor recipient Herschel Woodrow “Woody” Williams.
Organizers of Sunday’s ceremony in Havre de Grace say they expect Williams, who is 94, and the only surviving Medal of Honor recipient from the WWII Pacific Theater, to attend. Also attending will be Aberdeen Proving Ground Senior Commander Maj. Gen. Randy Taylor.
A local committee formed to raise funds for the Havre de Grace monument is hosting Sunday’s ceremony. The committee is co-chaired by Johnny Boker, second vice commander of American Legion Post 47 in Havre de Grace, and Craig Reeling, adjutant and past commandant of the Marine Corps League, Department of Maryland.
The City of Havre de Grace provided the site for the monument. Ground was broken on Sept. 11, 2017, the 16th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks that killed 2,977 people in New York City, the Pentagon in northern Virginia and in southwestern Pennsylvania.
The monument was suggested by members of the Harford County Commission on Veterans Affairs, which is chaired by Boker, a Havre de Grace resident.
Both the city and Harford County governments each pledged $10,000 to the campaign to build the monument, the cost of which was estimated at $40,000 to $50,000, according to organizers.
