For the City Times

H.O. Wolding will be delivering wreaths to cemeteries as a volunteer participant in supporting the Wreaths Across America initiative, which each year honors the nation’s deceased veterans by placing wreaths on their graves.

A short, regional and long haul trucking firm based in Amherst, H.O. Wolding will be donating its time, a truck, a trailer and fuel in transporting the wreaths from Columbia Falls, Maine, to Wood National Cemetery in Milwaukee and to the Central Wisconsin Veterans Cemetery in King, Wis. At each of the two cemeteries, the wreaths will be placed by volunteers on veterans’ graves.

Wreaths Across America is a non-profit organization that coordinates the services of volunteer trucking companies and other volunteers and that raises funds to support the laying of wreaths on veteran’s graves at more than 1,100 locations. The largest coverage of wreaths is at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Va., where the organization first met its goal in 2014 to lay a wreath on every single headstone in the cemetery.

The laying of wreaths at the Central Wisconsin Veterans Cemetery will start at 11:00 a.m. on Saturday, December 17, in coordination with similar wreath laying ceremonies at other locations across the country. More information is available by contacting Raymond McSherry, location coordinator, at 715-572-4922.

This is the second time in the past three years that H.O. Wolding has volunteered as a participant in Wreaths Across America.

The H.O. Wolding truck will be driven by Ricky Shatraw, a driver with the company and a decorated veteran with more than 20 years of service with the U.S. Army, most of which was spent as a medical specialist and non-commissioned officer. Shatraw’s honors include receiving an Army Commendation Medal and an Army Achievement Medal.

According to Marc Wolding, director of operations for H.O. Wolding, the company is eagerly looking forward to participating in the program again.

“We were fortunate enough to be one of the carriers that hauled wreaths to Arlington two years ago, and now we’re equally excited to have the chance to deliver wreaths to two Wisconsin cemeteries in honoring our country’s deceased veterans,” Wolding said.

Last year, 168 companies delivered more than 300 loads of wreaths to locations across the U.S., and a total of approximately 901,000 wreaths were placed on veterans’ graves.

More information is available at www.wreathsacrossamerica.org.