CUMRU TWP., Pa. – Hundreds of American flags will be planted this weekend in Berks County, representing a veteran and their story, while also raising awareness about suicide prevention.<\/p>\n
69 News Reporter Sydney Kay was in Cumru Township with more on this tribute.<\/p>\n
The flags will be planted at the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary Ukrainian Catholic Church’s cemetery Sunday. The event will take place from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. Dozens of flags have been planted already.<\/p>\n
Mike Weil, Director of Daily Operations for the Veterans Coalition of Pennsylvania,<\/a> said veterans comprise 24% of the suicides in Berks County. He said Sunday’s event is one of the ways the group raises funds and awareness, to help veterans get through tough times.<\/p>\n “We’re here to help,” Weil said.<\/p>\n Veterans Coalition of Pennsylvania Treasurer Ron Long said the SAVE 22 event refers to the average of 22 veterans a day who take their lives. He said veterans commit suicide for a variety of reasons, including having survivors guilt.<\/p>\n He said about 660 flags will be planted.<\/p>\n Long said being a veteran is being part of a brotherhood and sisterhood, and you don’t want to see a veteran commit suicide.<\/p>\n A lot of organizations are taking part in the event.<\/p>\n Emily Hirneisen, President of Business Club- Interact, Berks Catholic High School, said the organization includes two groups, with one engaging in business competitions and the other, Interact, which emphasizes service and leadership.\u00a0<\/p>\n She said that with student involvement, participants will write the names of veterans who have committed suicide and plant flags in their honor.<\/p>\n Hirneisen\u00a0said\u00a0Interact helps support veterans who have served our country, and hopes to do more events helping veterans in the future.<\/p>\n Mackenzie Robinson, Vice President of Business Club-Interact,\u00a0Berks Catholic High School, said “it means so much to us” to partner with organizations such as the\u00a0Veterans Coalition of Pennsylvania who do so much to give back to the community and honor the veterans who have given so much.<\/p>\n To sponsor a flag, people can head to teamvcop.org<\/a>. If you have someone you want to honor, you can have a person’s name put on a flag.\u00a0<\/p>\n Some resources for those who need help:<\/p>\n You can call or text the suicide prevention hotline at 988.<\/a> You can also call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK.<\/p>\n The website PA211.org<\/a> also has a list of resources available.<\/p>\n You can text HOME to 741 741 for the Crisis Text Line,<\/a> which is an option for those who don’t want to talk on the phone.<\/p>\n There’s the National Alliance on Mental Illness,<\/a> Prevent Suicide PA,<\/a> Prevent Suicide NJ,<\/a> plus the Trevor Project<\/a> for LGBTQ+ youth.<\/p>\n Every county in Pennsylvania has a crisis hotline and intervention team.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CUMRU TWP., Pa. – Hundreds of American flags will be planted this weekend in Berks County, representing a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":285726,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[214,279,805,128,130,129,8491,3705],"class_list":["post-285725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-_homepage_top_stories","tag-berks","tag-lehighvalley","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news","tag-southern-berks-county","tag-sunrise"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285725"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285725\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/285726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}