Crest Memorial Students to Show Borough’s Colors

WILDWOOD CREST – According to a release, 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 seventh 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 the commemoration of Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States that saw nearly 3,000 people perish.
Travascio will also have students attend the Sept. 11 memorial ceremony held at Turtle Gut Inlet Park, near Sunset Lake, in the borough.
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 a group of volunteers who planted flags at street corners for the length of the borough’s 43 blocks for more than a decade.
In 2013, Gould handed over the responsibility of Flags for Freedom to Crest Memorial School.
Although the Wildwood Crest Education Association contributed to the expense of the flags many Wildwood Crest businesses contributed to the project, including the Bal Harbor Motel, Tony’s Produce, Imperial 500 Motel, Chris Henderson Realty, Leader Printers, Hoffman Agency, Inc., Crest Savings Bank, Adventurer Inn, Carini’s Pizza, Seth Fuscellaro, Esq., Reges Oceanfront Resort, and Shalimar Resort,
Many of the local businesses contribute to the project each year because the owners feel strongly that Flags for Freedom is a worthwhile community project that properly signifies the sentiments of the community on Sept. 11.