In Tampa, a group of woodworkers has organized to craft urns for indigent veterans whose remains would otherwise be relegated to cardboard boxes.
Last year, Tom Jones decided to provide dignified containers for veterans whose families could not afford an urn or those veterans who had no family left to honor them.
Jones, Vice President of the Woodcrafters Club of Tampa, was moved to action when last June news reports surfaced that Pfc. Lawrence Davis Jr. had died alone in 2004 and was buried in a cardboard box at the Florida National Cemetery. Wanting to put his woodworking abilities to use but not knowing how, he asked his brother-in-law for advice, and the idea of making urns emerged.
“I made two of them right away and brought them to the club,” Jones said.
The group immediately agreed to take on the project, and so the Veterans Urn Project was born. It is now a collaboration between the Woodcrafters Club of Tampa, the Woodcrafters Club of St. Petersburg, and the AMVETS Post 9 in Odessa. Urns have been sent across the country to honor deceased vets, and other clubs nationwide have asked to be a part of the project.
Bob Patrick, chairman of the Veterans Urn Project and commander of the AMVETS Post 9 in Odessa, is a Vietnam veteran. He got help from Stephen Cook, a senior social worker for HPH Hospice, to get a dozen wooden urns donated to the hospice’s “We Honor Veterans” program.
“I think what it does is it gives (the families of indigent veterans) a sense of dignity and respect knowing that they have a piece of craftsmanship to lay their loved one to rest in more than anything else,” Cook said.
And they are truly beautiful pieces. Made from donated wood, each one is engraved with emblems from the different branches of the military by Ross Strickland, who volunteered the use of his laser engraver free of charge for the project.
“You could build a box to put mail in and you would probably take that box, even if it had a mark on it, and use it,” Patrick said. “But the guys who are building these right now, including myself, we want almost perfection if we can get it because this is the final resting place for someone. Unfortunately, their money ran out long before their last breath did and the thought of us putting them into something like (our urns) instead of putting them in a cardboard box is very rewarding.”
“With my background, I’ve seen the worst of people, and at times you get depressed because you wonder if there’s any good left in the world,” Jones said, reflecting on the overwhelming positive reaction they’ve received. “When you get this kind of response from people, you realize there still are a lot of good people out there who are, I guess, the silent majority.”
Photo: Woodcrafters Club of Tampa
