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Some veterans lacked flags at a cemetery. A Vallivue senior's projects rectified that

Idaho Statesman - 11/11/2019

Nov. 11--It started as a normal Saturday morning volunteer project. Boy Scouts from Troop 520 were installing small flags beside the graves of each veteran at Canyon Hill Cemetery in Caldwell on Memorial Day weekend.

"But we only got, like, halfway through the cemetery," remembered Ben Gonzalez, 17. "There was a point where we just ran out of flags and we couldn't keep going.

"It made me wonder -- do they have enough flags?"

Short answer: They didn't.

That's when the little volunteer project turned into something bigger. And the answer now is that there are enough flags.

"When we had the flags up, (Ben Gonzalez) goes, 'I see you're missing some flags,'" said Gary White, a veteran and 13-year organizer of the flag displays. " ... We're always short due to breakage."

Ordinarily, White would lobby the three organizations that share Caldwell's Veterans' Memorial Hall -- the American Legion, Disabled American Veterans and Veterans of Foreign Wars -- to share the cost of new flags, but he hadn't been able to pull that off yet.

Gonzalez, from Vallivue High School, was taking a senior summer school class and looking for a project; it's a requirement to graduate.

When he saw the missing flags, "it made me feel like the veterans were not being respected in the way that they should have been for their service," Gonzalez said. "It just wasn't right, you know -- it didn't feel proper to have a cemetery, on Memorial Day, missing those flags."

In particular, it seemed to him that the newer graves, the ones more likely to have family come visit, were where they ran out. It just didn't seem fair.

"They don't have the chance to be respected in the way that other veterans do," says Gonzalez. "Like (for instance), if none of them had flags on their graves, it would be more equal."

Marketing and fundraising to get flags for veterans

Gonzalez wants to study marketing or business, or maybe accounting. The senior class project can be used to help students delve more deeply into their potential career fields, so he got to work doing marketing and fundraising. He made a survey of businesses and called business owners. He visited places and got to know his community better. He asked people if they would support his project.

Gonzalez found that people with an emotional connection to veterans or to Boy Scouts -- and their community -- were very generous. At summer's end, he had $1,279 in donations. That was enough for 145 small flags and 16 larger ones that could line the cemetery walkway.

At the same time Gonzalez was working on his senior class project, he was also working toward his Eagle Scout rank. He was able to combine the two, but an Eagle Scout project can't be solely about fundraising. Gonzalez went back to White, who came up with another need: a flag box so that people could drop off their old, faded and in-need-of-retirement flags.

"He sat there and goes, 'Well, I can do that,'" White said. "A couple weeks later, he comes back ... and there's our flag box.

"He went all the way beyond in doing what was needed for the veterans."

Gonzalez was able to get an old post office box donated, and he organized other Scouts to help strip, paint and prepare the box. "This was a major service project," he said. "And probably one of the only projects I've worked on that will actually last for a while. ... Maybe decades, even."

Gonzalez said he will be able to come back here and show his family the project.

"It has my name on it and (the names of) everyone who donated from the community," he said.

That is what Brad Bingham, a business teacher at Vallivue, liked about what Gonzalez did. Bingham was the project coach for Gonzalez.

"Most kids don't think about making those connections in the community," Bingham said. "There was a certain flair about his project that was just unique. Something that was not just about him, but about the community. ...

"He wanted things perfect. Ben is that way -- he's always thinking about the next level, how to do things better, to leave a legacy, to do something that's great."

Even in high school, students can make a big impact, Bingham said.

"That's why I became a teacher: to show the world that we have good, good students coming out of high school, ready to work, ready to do things," he said.

It was worth all the work

A few weeks after the flag box was installed, White was curious about how it was being used. He unlocked the door, and more than a dozen flags were waiting for proper disposal.

He was pleased. He was also pleased that Boy Scouts were learning the value of service.

"Some of them might end up going into the military," White said. "I want these guys to know and understand that you're serving your country, right now, as a Boy Scout. What (you're) doing is serving the country, because (you're) here to help."

Gonzalez was pleased, too, even though he was nervous going into the project.

"I didn't want to do this big project over my summer and kind of take my summertime away," he said. Now, he's glad he did it.

"There are a lot of people that put their work into this," he said. "I think it turned out pretty good."

Proud of the new flags

This Veterans Day, early in the morning, Gonzalez, other Scouts and veterans, and volunteers plan to place 20 flagpoles into the holes in the sidewalk around Veterans Hall. Those poles will be flying the 16 flags that Gonzalez's donations were able to buy, and White is making a point to use those -- the brilliantly colored, brand-spanking new ones.

"Oh, I'm going to be proud of it," White said, imagining how it will look on Monday. "We can say: This is due to our Boy Scouts that got these for us."

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