WAA: 'The best thing in trucking'

DUANE CROSS
Publisher • Editor

Lynchburg will honor service members during the holiday season by participating in Wreaths Across America on Saturday. Two years ago, I interviewed WAA Director of Transportation Don Queeney about his career with the organization. While the theme of WAA is different in 2024 – Live with Purpose – the mission remains the same: Remember. Honor. Teach.

Lynchburg's WAA events will begin at 10:30 a.m. Saturday at Highview and Lynchburg cemeteries.

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The trucking industry is a vital part of the Wreaths Across America ecosystem. And Don Queeney has a unique perspective, having been on the owner-operator side before joining WAA as its Director of Transportation. This year's theme – Find a Way to Serve – fits Don. He found a way to serve.

"In 2013, I was in my 30th year owning a trucking company outside of Norfolk, Virginia. One of our over-the-road drivers said, 'Hey, have you ever heard of Wreaths Across America?' I had not. We were doing charitable work with Wounded Warrior at the time and six or seven other things in our market. So this guy is very diligent, and he stayed on me. I agreed to have our company haul for Wreaths in 2014. I grabbed a load for Arlington [National Cemetery]. ... That changed absolutely everything for me."

The same can be said for Morrill Worcester, owner of Worcester Wreath Company of Harrington, Maine. He was a 12-year-old paper boy when he won a trip to Washington D.C. Arlington National Cemetery made an indelible impression on him.

In 1992, Worcester Wreath had a surplus of wreaths. Remembering his boyhood experience at Arlington, Worcester realized he could honor veterans. So, with the aid of Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe, arrangements were made for the wreaths to be placed at Arlington in one of the older sections of the cemetery that had received fewer visitors each year.

In 2005, a photo of the stones at Arlington – adorned with wreaths and covered in snow – went viral. Thousands of requests poured in from across the country. So, two years later, Wreaths Across America was formed as a non-profit 501-(c)(3) to expand the effort and support groups around the country who wanted to do the same. The mission of the group is simple: Remember. Honor. Teach.

Early in Don's relationship with WAA, he made a miscalculation that he jokes about to this day. "This was my naivety at the time. 'How hard can this be?' " he said. "At the time, there were 400 trailer loads. And I'm like, 'We do this in our sleep at our moving company. I could do this with a grease board, a box full of file folders, some pencils, and a little assistance on the phones.'

"I realized before very long that I was so, so wrong. But, then, I found out there's much more to it – unbelievably more."

Ultimately, the relationship turned into employment. Don succeeded Debbie Sparks as the WAA Director of Transportation. "I jumped in and wanted to fix the world ... and realized it didn't need fixing.

"WAA had something really special going on," he said. "It just grows so much each year. A fellow on the radio likens us
to setting up a Fortune 500 transportation company for six weeks a year. It's like that, really; it's amazing. We'll ship to
3,600 locations this year and probably exceed 2.5 million wreaths on close to 600 tractor-trailer loads."

While the logistics of moving so many wreaths to so many places can seem overwhelming, Don points to the volunteers who make Wreaths Across America a success. "The dedication of all these volunteers ... every location has a minimum of two or three volunteers that help make it happen," he said.

"And there are sponsorship groups that raise the monies behind them, truckers, and the people that lay the wreaths.

"We use a cliche, 'It's more than a wreath,' and it's true. You start doing this work and coming in contact with these people that really dig it and then stumbling upon somebody that maybe didn't know anything about it but was so moved by it. In some cases, they're an average citizen. Then you meet that newly minted Gold Star wife who stops by her husband's headstone to find a fresh balsam wreath on it and tries to figure out who did this. Then they learn about [WAA], and they become involved."

The annual wreath-laying will culminate Saturday, Dec. 17, to conclude WAA's trek from Harrington, Maine, to Arlington National Cemetery. The pilgrimage has become the world's largest veterans' parade, stopping at schools, monuments, veterans' homes, and communities.

Asked if one memory encapsulates his time with Wreaths Across America, Don quickly replied: "Let's just say I have a hundred of them. However, one stands out.

"Out shuffles a World War II vet with a walker," Don said. "He was bound and determined to participate. A couple of guys helped get the wreaths out there, and we put a box of wreaths across the bars of his walker. He leaned the box against his chest, then shuffled back to make sure he was part of this whole thing. ... Man, that kind of stuff keeps you wanting to keep doing this.

"This thing is much bigger than me – the number of people our program has impacted. We all know how important it is. It's so much more than just a wreath.

"Find a way to serve," he added. "It doesn't have to be serving WAA's mission. It could be any mission, and it doesn't even have to do with the military – find a way to participate in your community. So, yeah, that's what keeps me going – finding a way to serve."

• Learn more at wreathsacrossamerica.org

Originally Published October 2022