Chattanooga campaign begins to place wreaths on National Cemetery graves

CHATTANOOGA (WDEF) – The Wreaths across Chattanooga campaign is underway.

Committee members and supporters held a kickoff event at the national cemetery this morning.

Last year’s campaign was successful with almost 10-thousand donated wreaths.

But there are 47-thousand graves in the cemetery, and even with three-thousand volunteers like last year, it’s hard to honor each one.

Retired Navy Captain Mickey McCamish tells us “Last year we set a local record at ten thousand, and that’s the highest number that has ever been raised, that was a hundred thousand dollars, and it covered ten thousand gravestones, which was a record, and so today we’re also going to announce our pace-setter campaign that’s well on the way to surpass that ten thousand.”

11 businesses donated or made pledges today.

Donations can be made at CHATTANOOGAWAA.com.

All wreaths that are donated will be placed on graves on December 14th.