Fundraising effort kicks off for support of Kern County World War II Veterans Memorial

Oct. 20—The fundraising goal to build Bakersfield's first World War II Veterans Memorial is a hefty half-million dollars — and organizers have exactly one year and 21 days to get it done before its planned unveiling on Veterans Day 2022.

Hey. No one said it was going to be easy.

But the people behind the effort have confidence in the community. They know Bakersfield and Kern County. And they are counting on the generosity of corporate contributors and individual donors to get it done.

"Kern County has been and will continue to be a patriotic community," said Ed Gaede, board president of the Kern County World War II Veterans Memorial Committee, the nonprofit organization behind the effort.

Kern has a long track record of supporting military veterans, he said, honoring those who have served and commemorating the history of that service.

"I'm confident our nonprofit organization will see a generous outpouring of public, private, corporate and in-kind support and donations to help build this reverent, long-overdue memorial," Gaede said.

In fact, area businesses are already stepping up to help.

Steve Ogden Concrete, for example, has offered to handle the concrete work on the memorial, which will be constructed at Jastro Park on Truxtun Avenue.

The Bakersfield City Council gave the go-ahead for the construction of the concrete, granite and steel monument last month.

Another longtime local business, A-C Electric Co., has agreed to build the electrical system for the memorial, including the donation of labor and materials, said A-C Electric's Jason Virrey, the company's pre-construction service manager.

"To be a part of something like this," Virrey said, "to assist in the construction of this memorial, this is something I've always wanted to do, and something A-C Electric is honored to be a part of."

For Gaede, a Vietnam veteran who has been working to coordinate this complex project, anxiety has been building as he hears reports of supply chain delays and bottlenecks at ports of entry and other locations.

Getting the needed funding as soon as possible to meet deadlines would be the best possible outcome, Gaede said. The United States does not have the high-quality black granite organizers intend to use on the memorial, so they must order it from Asia.

But there's another reason for the committee's sense of urgency.

Virtually all living World War II veterans are in their 90s and 100s, said Kathleen Grainger-Shaffer, a member of the nonprofit's board of directors.

The earlier the memorial is finished, the better the chance more World War II vets will have the opportunity to see it, she told The Californian.

Grainger-Shaffer's own father is one of those World War II veterans. U.S. Navy veteran Walter Grainger, 95, served more than a year and a half aboard the USS Crenshaw, an attack transport ship in the Pacific. He later became a teacher in the Kern High School District.

Now he serves on the nonprofit board with his daughter, working to bring this idea of a memorial to fruition.

"It's time," Grainger said.

Reporter Steven Mayer can be reached at 661-395-7353. Follow him on Facebook and on Twitter: @semayerTBC.