By MAUREEN DOHERTY
NORTH READING — The Select Board unanimously voted to designate the month of November as “Veterans and Military Families Appreciation Month” at Monday night’s meeting. The proclamation calls upon the residents of town to not only honor veterans and enlisted personnel for their service to the nation on Veterans’ Day but to also acknowledge and support the great sacrifices being made every day by military families who endure long absences from their loved ones during their service all over the world in order to keep the homeland safe.
After the vote, Select Board Chairwoman Liane Gonzalez read the proclamation aloud. The proclamation will be read aloud again as part of Saturday’s Veterans’ Day services on the Town Common, which will begin at 11 a.m. sharp, noted Veterans’ Services Director Susan Magner.
All are welcome to attend the services will be held beneath the flagpole, just steps away from the town’s five war memorials at the top of the Town Common on November 11.
In addition to putting the focus on how deployments affect children and their families, a story about veterans in their neighborhoods will be read to the children. Magner said the messages provided by the day’s speakers will be given from the perspective of Blue Star and Gold Star families. The speakers will provide a mother’s perspective, a recently widowed spouse’s perspective and a young woman who will recall how service-related medical issues endured by her father affected her family while she was growing up in town. Blue Star families are the immediate family members of a service member on active duty during a time of conflict. Gold Star families are the immediate family members of a fallen service member who died while serving in a time of conflict. Each star on the respective banners represent one service member from the family displaying them.
The ceremony was organized by the town’s Veterans Services Department and Veterans Event Committee.
Traditional elements of the Veterans’ Day ceremony will include participation by the North Reading Police Department Honor Guard, the Patriot Guard, members of the North Reading VFW Post 10874 laying wreaths at the base of the war memorials, patriotic music provided by the North Reading High School Marching Hornets, the National Anthem sung by high school student Alivia Rowe, local Scout troops leading all in the Pledge of Allegiance, a reading of the 2023 high school winning scholarship essay, “What the American Flag Means to Me,” run by the NRRTC, local clergy and addresses by local officials.
Refreshments will be served at the conclusion of the event.