Every year for nearly the past decade, Trigg County Hospital’s Cindy Ezell-Hinson wrangles up all of her vacation days and spends them all in mid-December for one driven, passionate purpose.
She serves as a main soldier of local efforts surrounding Wreaths Across America, and its not-for-profit efforts adorning the resting places of veterans during the winter holidays.
During a Tuesday visit with the Cadiz Rotary Club, she noted she has since found herself as the responsible contact in 12 counties through west Kentucky and northwest Tennessee, including Trigg, Caldwell, Calloway, Crittenden, McCracken, Marshall, Lyon, Livingston, Graves and Christian, as well as Henry and Stewart.
And a lot has changed in local efforts over the last nine Christmases.
With that extraordinary number, Ezell-Hinson said she has had scores of volunteers reach out to her through the years — looking to find ways to give back to their respective communities.
But she also noted there’s always a need for more volunteers to place wreaths, as well as more room to expand the program. In Trigg County alone, she and Steve Darnell said they have been able to confirm at least 580 veterans are buried between East End Cemetery and Trigg Memory Acres, and not all of them got a wreath last year.
Furthermore, this doesn’t include the scores of family plots at churches, on rural county roads, nor at Land Between the Lakes.
She said several sponsors, as well as private and familial donors, provide what continues to be a practice growing each turn of the calendar.
She knows she may not see it in her lifetime, but she wants to see a wreath on every veteran’s grave in west Kentucky — and further, if she could have it her way.
Ezell-Hinson said she’s been to Arlington National Cemetery 13 times, and every year rolls her wreaths over to the country’s “Hallowed Grounds” for a key reason.
Last year, she placed more than 200 wreaths in Trigg and surrounding counties, and she’s gotten calls from families all over the country seeking to honor their descendants this way.
Wreaths, she said, are $17 each, and during certain times of the year are $17 for a pair. Made from fresh natural materials, they remain on graves for about a month, before being donated to compost or nearby farms in order to feed goats and other livestock.
Her contact and payment information:
+ Call or text: (270) 875-5113
+ Make checks payable to Wreaths Across America, which can be mailed to her at 433 Oliver Road in Cadiz, Kentucky, 42211
+ Or by PayPal: Cindy Hinson, journey46@gmail.com
