By, Marty Holland, Program Chair
15 April 2023 – Risking a marginal weather forecast, for what turned out to be a much warmer than predicted Saturday morning, members of Post 7327 gathered to conduct our Adopt-A-Highway cleanup. Comrades Jim Ellet, Gary Kelch, Steve Williams, Bob Phelan, Terry Orsmby, Jay Byrum, Dave Clements, and Marty Holland as well as VFW Auxiliary member Anne Holland were joined by 4 members of the West Springfield High School (WSHS) Military Ambassadors Club (MAC) (COL (R) Jeff Toomer, Catherine Nuno, Sean Hood, and Matthew Hood) to complete this bi-annual (twice a year) community service project. As we have done for the past couple of years, we met at the TGI Friday’s on Frontier Drive at 8:00 am and enjoyed a quick snack and a short safety briefing before heading out to our section of the Franconia-Springfield Parkway. (Photos of our group attached)
Although the task took us a bit longer than normal, thanks to the energy and enthusiasm of the Comrades present and the volunteers from the WSHS MAC Boys Lacrosse Team we completed our task in about 4 hours while collecting over 40 bags of trash and several other large pieces of debris (photo attached). This was another great opportunity for members of the Post and Auxiliary to work alongside the WSHS volunteers to make sure that our stretch of the Franconia-Springfield Parkway, to include the Veterans of Foreign Wars Bridge, will be “standing tall and looking good” for Earth Day on April 22 and Memorial Day on May 29, 2023.
Adopt-A-Highway remains a truly important and highly visible community service project along a busy stretch of road that includes official Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) signs recognizing VFW Post 7327’s “adoption” of this part of the road. We sincerely appreciated everyone’s help and Post 7327 will present a certificate and donation to the WSHS Military Ambassadors Club in recognition of their hard work and community service.
Mark your calendars!! We anticipate conducting our next Highway Clean-Up on Saturday morning 14 October 2023! We will publish the exact date with an inclement weather (make-up) date soon. Stay tuned. All VFW and Auxiliary members are invited, and family, friends, and community groups are welcome.
If you have questions or want more information, please contact Marty Holland, 703-232-5611 or martyholland@verizon.net.
