By Jim Newell
Review Editor
The Orion Veterans Memorial got a little extra sprucing up before the Memorial Day ceremony, with volunteers from the Lake Orion Home Depot planting flowers and a Victory Garden on May 22.
Alana Hart, community outreach coordinator for the Lake Orion Home Depot, said the Home Depot Foundation gave the Veterans Memorial a grant to cover the costs of planting the Victory Garden, planting geraniums and petunias around the Memorial walls, fresh soil, a table and chairs for the pavilion and some new tools.
“It’s a $2,000 grant from the Home Depot Foundation to the Orion Veterans Memorial. This is our sixth year helping our veterans out and making this memorial beautiful for our community,” Hart said. “One of the main focuses of the foundation is to give back to those who have served. Not many communities have something like (the Veterans Memorial). I feel like it’s the least we can do.”
Bob Watros, the meticulous caretaker of the Veterans Memorial and member of VFW Post 334, said the veterans and Home Depot have formed a friendship over the years and credits the Home Depot team with their willingness to support the Memorial.
“I just can’t say enough about them. Alana is an important person (to us) but everybody down at Home Depot treats us really good. If we go down there to get something, they’re really helpful to the veterans,” Watros said. “We have volunteers at the memorial, too, but we don’t have volunteers who can take the time that they take to get the whole job done at one time.”
All the “Team Depot” members volunteered their time outside of their work schedules. “They came here to give back to those who have given so much to us,” Hart said.
The vegetables grown in the Victory Garden will go to the veterans, who also share some with people in the community.
“This year we planted a couple of different things. We’re trying celery, we’ve got yellow squash and jalapeños, the veterans love jalapeños, tomatoes, peppers, basil, eggplant. So, a whole variety of things for them to enjoy,” Hart said. “This food goes directly to the veterans who come to the Memorial and to any veteran who can’t get out of their home, and the veterans take it to them. If there’s any left-over it will go to Oxford/Orion FISH.”
“I think the Victory Garden is more of a symbol of the times of World War II than it is of the crops that we get,” Watros said. “A lot of people stop by just to see how the plants are doing.”
Home Depot volunteers built the Victory Garden as memorial to the women on the Homefront who had to take care of their families while their husbands were overseas.
“In 2015, there was an idea to build a Victory Garden memorial in honor of World War II, when the women stayed home and grew Victory Gardens alongside their homes to provide food for their families,” Hart said. “So, we were honored when they asked us if we would come and build a Victory Garden and be a part of the memorial.
Home Depot has donated $20,000 toward the memorial over the years, with previous grants for new decking on the pavilion in 2013, building the raised garden beds, beautification and supplies, Hart said.
Home Depot also purchased a Memorial brick, thanking Home Depot employees for their military service. There are 15 veterans working at the Lake Orion Home Depot.