AMERICAN FLAG DROP OFF BOX
Since the Woodridge Police Department has moved into their new facility, Woodridge VFW has decided to move the existing American Flag Drop Off Box from the lobby of the old Police Station / Public Works to a better location!
With the approval and help from the Village and Public Works Department, it is now conveniently located right outside the main doors of Village Hall.
When your flag becomes worn out or tattered, just place it in there and the VFW, along with the Lisle/Woodridge Fire District, will properly retire it. This box is an old corner mail box painted to look like an American Flag. You can use this box 24 hours a day, 7 days a week!

(Caution, smile, there are cameras monitoring this area)

Poppy Days
 
This year Post 1578 will have our annual Poppy Days on Friday, May 24th Saturday May 25th. We will man both of the doors at Jewel and at Walgreens.
 
Friday – 8:00am—noon, 2:00pm—5:00pm
Saturday – 8:00 am—noon
 
We will also be at Home Landscaping on that Friday and Saturday of Memorial Day weekend, from 9:00 am until noon.
 
The VFW conducted its first poppy distribution before Memorial Day in 1922, becoming the first veterans’ organization to organize a nationwide distribution. The poppy soon was adopted as the official memorial flower of the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States.
 
It was during the 1923 encampment that the VFW decided that VFW Buddy Poppies be assembled by disabled and needy veterans who would be paid for their work to provide them with some form of financial assistance. The plan was formally adopted during the VFW’s 1923 encampment. The next year, disabled veterans at the Buddy Poppy factory in Pittsburgh assembled VFW Buddy Poppies. The designation “Buddy Poppy” was adopted at that time.
 
In February 1924, the VFW registered the name “Buddy Poppy” with the U.S. Patent Office. A certificate was issued on May 20, 1924, granting the VFW all trademark rights in the name of Buddy under the classification of artificial flowers. The VFW has made that trademark a guarantee that all poppies bearing that name and the VFW label are genuine products of the work of disabled and needy veterans. No other organization, firm or individual can legally use the name “Buddy” Poppy.
 
Buying a Buddy Poppy and helping the VFW continues to benefit needy veterans today, just as it has for so many years. To date, the VFW has sold over one billion Buddy Poppies. As long as Americans continue to spill their blood in defense of freedom, sales of these blood-red poppies will undoubtedly continue strong.
 
 

MEMORIAL DAY PARADE
AND SERVICE
 
Woodridge VFW Post 1578, along with the Lisle/Woodridge Fire Department, will sponsor the annual Memorial Day parade on Monday, May 27th, beginning at 9:00 am. The VFW invites ALL VETERANS, regardless of branch of service, age, or duty, to join and march along.
 
The parade will line up at Fire Station 2 (75th Street and Woodridge Drive) at 8:30 am and will proceed north on Woodridge Drive, then east on Center Drive to Memorial Park. The parade will be silent and solemn. The District 68 Marching Band Drumline will provide a cadence. Many Color Guards will be present.
 
The VFW will then have a Memorial Day Service. The public is invited to attend.
 
Memorial Day is not a day of celebration, as if it were the Fourth of July, although our national colors have had a prominent place in its observance since the Civil War.
 
The distinction has to do with what we are celebrating –not a glorious beginning but an honorable end–an end which, whether it were heroic or not, should be observed and remembered with solemnity and reverence. Memorial Day is a day we dedicate to the dead–to remember those who fell in defense of this country and the ideals which this country stands for.
 
War should not be the occupation of humankind. To ensure that it is not, to ensure that it does not touch every household and every living being, some have forfeited their lives. They did not choose to die for us. Instead, they chose, or were sometimes required, to live in a manner which brought them in harm’s way, and to that harm they fell.
 
Our task is not to validate the sacrifice but to acknowledge it, to remember that it was made. And if any validation is necessary, it is for we the living to prove that we are worthy of the sacrifice through dedication toward the peace that was purchased by these honored dead.
 
For more information, please contact Woodridge VFW at 910-1578 .