Screven County among top five Wreaths Across America teams out of 205 in Georgia
Screven County History Buffs' Wreaths Across America team is only on its third season, but it's already among the best teams in Georgia and the U.S.
Every holiday season, Wreaths Across America teams scout out burial sites of service members and raise funds to purchase Christmas wreaths that are placed on the graves to salute their service and their sacrifices.
Sponsoring approximately 1,388 wreaths, Screven County ranked fifth among Georgia's 205 registered teams. The other four teams were, in ascending order, American Legion Post 515 in Douglas, "WAA North Georgia," the Bennett/Taylor Family Foundation in McDonough and Wreaths Across America Beaufort, which is based in Georgia and supports Beaufort National Cemetery. This was according to documents sent to the teams by WAA liaison Trish Gardner; they were sent to The Sylvania Telephone by Screven County team leader Scotty Scott.
The Screven County team is also one of the better teams across the U.S. as well. The documents also provide national numbers, showing 5,372 registered teams. Among all of those groups, Screven County ranked 182, meaning it outperformed around 97% of all teams.
Scott said he is impressed with their performance and had no idea they did so well among the state teams, let alone the national teams. He said it's not only an honor, but it's also been a great help for his genealogical work.
"With both the Veterans of Foreign Wars and with the American Legion, one of our charters is that we are supposed to try to find unmarked veteran graves and get markers for them," Scott said. "Now that I have people all over the county … doing that, I'm getting a lot of information."
In order to get their numbers higher, the team will require more volunteers. For more information, check out the "Screven County Wreaths Across America" Facebook page.
This article originally appeared on Augusta Chronicle: Screven County among Georgia's top five Wreaths Across America teams
