Cape Canaveral National Cemetery Wreaths

Our mission is to ensure that veterans interred at Cape Canaveral National Cemetery are remembered with a wreath.  

Morrill Worcester, owner of Worcester Wreath Company of Harrington, Maine, was a 12-year old paper boy when he won a trip to Washington D.C. It was his first to our nation’s capital and one that would change the trajectory of his life and the lives of millions of others across the country. Seeing the hundreds of thousands of graves and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery made an especially indelible impression on him. It was to be an experience that would follow him throughout his life and successful career, reminding him that his good fortune was due, in large part, to the values of his nation and the veterans who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country.

In 1992, Worcester Wreath found themselves with a surplus of wreaths nearing the end of the holiday season. Remembering his boyhood experience at Arlington, Worcester realized he had an opportunity to honor our country’s veterans. With the aid of Maine Senator Olympia Snowe (ret), arrangements were made for the surplus wreaths to be placed at Arlington in one of the older cemetery sections that had been receiving fewer visitors each passing year.  As plans were underway to transport the wreaths to Washington, a number of other individuals and organizations stepped up to help. James Prout, owner of local trucking company Blue Bird Ranch, Inc., generously provided transportation all the way to Virginia. Volunteers from the local American Legion and VFW Posts gathered with members of the community to decorate each wreath with traditional red, hand-tied bows. Members of the Maine State Society of Washington D.C., helped to organize the wreath-laying, which included a special ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.  For over a decade, this annual tribute went on quietly and privately. Everything changed in 2005, when a photo of the stones at Arlington, adorned with wreaths and covered in snow, circulated around the internet. Suddenly, the homespun tribute from a small town in downeast Maine was receiving national attention. Thousands of requests poured in from all over the country from people wanting to help purchase and lay wreaths at Arlington. Thousands more wanted to emulate the Arlington project at their local National and State cemeteries. Still others simply desired to share their stories and thank Morrill Worcester for honoring our nation’s heroes. Many were surviving family members of some of those heroes.

Unable to donate thousands of wreaths to each state, Worcester began sending seven wreaths to every state: One for each branch of the military and an additional wreath to pay tribute to POW/MIAs. In 2006, with the help of the Civil Air Patrol and other civic organizations, simultaneous wreath-laying ceremonies were held at over 150 locations around the country. The Patriot Guard Riders volunteered as escorts for the wreaths going to Arlington in the beginnings of the annual “Veterans Honor Parade,” a convoy that now travels the east coast every year in early December.   The annual trip to Arlington and the groups of volunteers eager to participate in Worcester’s simple wreath-laying event grew each year until it became clear that the desire to remember and honor our country’s fallen heroes was bigger than he could have imagined possible at the outset. The movement had grown beyond Arlington and bigger than this one company in Harrington, Maine.

In 2007, the Worcester family, along with the support of veterans organizations and a variety of other groups and individuals who had helped with their annual veterans wreath ceremony in Arlington, formed Wreaths Across America, a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, to continue and expand this effort, and support others around the country who wanted to do the same. The simple mission of the organization was established