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Old Glory rides the wind thanks to the Carrollton-Farmers Branch Rotary Club.
Championed by the Carrollton-Farmers Branch Rotary Club, the service project, Flags over Carrollton and Farmers Branch, presents an opportunity for patriotic members of the community to rent the Stars and Stripes for $55 a year on seven American holidays: Memorial Day, Flag Day, Juneteenth, Independence Day, Labor Day, Sept. 11 and Veterans Day.
On any of these holidays, various boy scout and cub troops deliver the three-foot-by-five-foot American Flags that stand for the remainder of the holiday.
“We are sending out just over 1,100 flags for each holiday,” said Bill Bexley, treasurer of the Carrollton-Farmers Branch Rotary Club. Receiving a flag is similar to paying for a yearly subscription. The person does not receive a flag to own but reserves a flag on specific dates for holiday uses.
“We are now doing seven holidays with five deployments,” said Bexley.
The Rotary Club added the Juneteenth and 9/11, earlier this year.
“Flag Day, June 14, we pick them up after June 19,” Bexley said, and “for Labor Day they don’t pick them up until 9/11.”
After purchasing and reserving a flag, the CFB Rotary Club comes to your property and installs a PVC plastic sleeve about 15 inches away from the curb or sidewalk. This hidden PVC sleeve is marked with a blue star on the ground, which indicates to the troops delivering flags that the PVC sleeve is nearby.
“They have fun running around,” said Bret Ayala, cubmaster of Cub Scout Pack 715. “They unfurl the flags and find the sleeves, so it’s not just the parents doing all of the work.”
Ayala, his son and his pack of five to 10 year olds are tasked with delivering the majority of the flags in Farmers Branch.
“We do a big portion of them,” said Ayala.
Pack 715 began this journey across the city with only 180 flags, but that number has grown.
“They had done it for quite a while before,” said Ayala, but now, “our number is up to 410 [flags] for the holidays.”
Flags over CFB began “probably about six years ago,” said Bexley; at the time, Jerry Bates was president of the CFB Rotary Club.
“We’re into our sixth year,” said Ayala.
Even though Pack 715 has over 400 flags to deliver, the squad of 56 cub scouts gets the job done in only a few hours. “We’ve got the system down,” said Ayala.
From the beginning, Ayala has eagerly used Flags over CFB as an opportunity to introduce strong values to the cubs, values like patriotism and volunteering. “This is a fundraiser for our pack, so we’re trying to use it to instill different values,” said Ayala.
Similarly, Anna Buford, a Webelo den leader for Pack 1213, has been inspiring the same values in her own Webelo Den. “We should always be wanting to support and do things in the community,” said Buford, “we don’t view it all as work.”
Pack 1213 began participating in the Rotary Club’s fundraiser earlier this year. “We’ve been doing it in Carrollton right now and have been this whole Summer,” said Buford. “For the kids it’s pretty cool, because they get to walk the neighborhoods.”
Together, the CFB Rotary Club and participating Boy Scout troops, are serving their communities.
“Our club focuses on the kids of our community,” said Bexley. “The flag program has become a program of patriotism that helps raise money for scouting units and the Rotary Club.”
To rent and reserve a flag for the future visit flagsovercfb.com.
“It’s a program that honors our country, it honors our veterans, and it honors our community in a very positive way,” said Bexley, “it’s a program that brings a lot of our members together to provide a service to the community.”
