Crest Memorial Students and Teachers to Show Borough’s Colors

WILDWOOD CREST – During the evening hours of Sept. 10, more than 50 student, parent, and teacher volunteers will take to the streets of the borough to plant flags at every street corner in Wildwood Crest.
The project, called Flags for Freedom, requires more than 1,000 flags and an army of volunteers to insert the flags at street corners. For the second consecutive year, the project is coordinated through the Wildwood Crest Education Association, comprised of faculty and staff at Crest Memorial School. Social studies teacher Lisa Travascio will gather middle school student volunteers to do the planting as part of her lessons centered around commemoration of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States that saw nearly 3,000 people perish.
Flags for Freedom originated in 2002. Joyce Gould, a Wildwood Crest Commissioner, started the organization and solicited local businesses for donations to fund the purchase of flags. Gould assembled an group of volunteers who faithfully planted flags at street corners for the length of the borough’s 43 blocks for more than a decade.
In 2013, Gould handed over responsibility of Flags for Freedom to Crest Memorial teacher Jeannine Yecco, a longtime volunteer with Flags for Freedom. Yecco, who teaches writing for math to her eighth-grade classes, will have her eighth graders determine the number of flags needed to cover every intersection of the borough, and verify the cost of the project given the price per gross of flags.
Although the Wildwood Crest Education Association contributed to the expense of the flags by donating the proceeds from a recent “Casual Friday,” many Wildwood Crest businesses contributed to the project, including the Bal Harbor Hotel, Biscayne Motel, Adventurer Motor Inn, Paradise Resort, J. Byrne Agency, Tony’s Produce Market, Port Royal Hotel, Tangiers Motel, Wild Burrito, Starlight Fleet, Jellyfish Cafe, Bandanas, Hoffman Agency, Reges Oceanfront, Leader Printers, Attache Motel, and Contemporary Technologies.
Donations are still being taken and will be put toward the purchase of flags for the 2015 Flags for Freedom. Contributions may be made to WCEA, in care of Wildwood Crest Memorial School, 9100 Pacific Ave., Wildwood Crest, N.J. 08260.