Late
last summer, Jon Snodgrass was hanging out at the Paulding VFW Post
#587 with Karen and Matt Sunday, when the seed of an idea to honor local
veterans was planted. That initial seed of an idea would bear fruit
this past week around Paulding with the hanging of Paulding Hometown
Heroes banners throughout the village this past Friday.
The two’s
conversation that day turned to the hometown heroes’ banners in other
communities along US-127. He said to Karen, “We have a beautiful square.
We get so many compliments on our courthouse. Wouldn’t it look cool if
we had banners, too.”
“She said, ‘yeah, we need to work on that.’ And sure enough, we did it,” said Snodgrass.
Sunday added, “John and I had seen other towns doing it and discussed that we should try and get them started here.”
Sunday
and Snodgrass contacted Robin Eberly to start working on layouts for
the banners. “We started checking out designs and seeing which ones
would be fitting and appropriate,” added Snodgrass.
The two typed
up an application form for area residents to sponsor someone. They also
started acquiring the necessary permissions for the project to ensure
the banners could be hung in the community. Paulding’s village council
backed the idea and AEP said utility poles were available, so they moved
forward with how to hang them.
Lance Sinn of Ace Hardware helped
research what brackets would be needed to hang the banners, and VFW Post
#587 donated the $2,300 to purchase the brackets.
“We got enough
brackets for 100 brackets,” said Snodgrass. “We weren’t sure how many we
were going to get. We ended up with 79 banners right now.”
Donations
made the project possible. In addition to the VFW’s purchase of the
brackets, Paulding Putnam Electric Co-op donated their services to hang
the banners on utility poles lining US-127.
“When I got a hold of
George (referring to George Carter, the CEO of Paulding-Putnam Electric
Co-op), he didn’t bat an eye. I asked is there any way … He said, ‘Yep,
just let us know,’” said Snodgrass.
As he watched crew members
hanging banners, Carter explained why the co-op got involved, “One of
our seven co-operative principles is commitment to the community, and
there is no higher commitment than honoring our veterans. That’s why we
are out here.”
Lance Sinn, of Ace Hardware, donated his time and
his lift to hang banners around the square, while the Paulding Police
Department directed traffic around where the co-op’s linesmen worked on
US-127.
“It took a lot of people to make everything happen,” said
Sunday. “We did this with no money or not too much money. The sponsors
paid for the banners, but nearly everything else was donated. There was
no profit.”
Robin Eberle printed the banners, and he worked with
Sunday and Snodgrass to keep costs as low as possible. Other banners
they looked at were one-sided and ranged in cost between $120-150, but
Eberle was able to create a larger, two-sided banner for the same cost.
“He gave us a really good deal on the banners, and that’s what the sponsors paid for. The banner itself.”
Eberle continued, “We saved them quite a bit of money from other venues and pretty much made it as efficient as we could.”
The
organizers plan to hang the banners through Veterans Day in November,
take them down during the winter, and then hang them again next year.
Once they decide that a banner is ready to be retired, and as long as it
is still presentable, the banner will be returned to whomever sponsored
it.
“We know we can get two years. We may be able to continue to a third year if they still look presentable,” said Sunday.
“We
know what is going to happen,” said Snodgrass. “People will say, ‘We
didn’t know about it. Can we get one?’ Well, you can next year. Right
now, we have 79 of them. Next year, we may have over a hundred.”
Snodgrass
added, “I told Karen and Robin, if we have to run all the way to Cecil
and Latty, we will.” He hopes one day to see US-127 designated as the
Hometown Hero Banner Highway. “The city of Bryan has them. Van Wert and
Celina have them. We have them now. I would love to get a hold of the
council in Sherwood and see if they are interested in the project.”
With
potential help from elected officials, he envisions putting a sign at
the edge of town that says, “We are a Hometown Heroes Banner Community.”
Eberle
knows the driving force behind the project, “John and Karen were so
organized. They knew what they wanted, and they got everything ready.
Think of all the parts that had to come together for this. It’s amazing
they pulled this together in a short period of time.”
And now, everyone traveling US-127 through Paulding this Memorial Day will be able to honor the village’s hometown heroes.