Wanted: Lei Flowers For Veterans’ Graves

With flower donations dwindling the past few years, Girl Scouts are asking the public for help with their “Lei of Aloha” Saturday as they prepare for Memorial Day observances at Hawaii Veterans Cemetery in Kaneohe.

Donations of flowers and lei are welcome, with stephanotis and plumerias as the preferred blossoms. Stalks of ginger and heliconia also are being collected. Lei will be strung by the Kaneohe Girls Scouts, ages 5 to 15, and will then be laid on graves at a special ceremony Monday. For more information on how to donate, call 271-1835 or 235-6346.

It’s a Memorial Day tradition for many families to visit the graves of the fallen soldiers at both Punchbowl and Hawaii Veterans Cemetery in Kaneohe, paying respects with lei, gifts and prayers.

Scout troops also visit each cemetery, with Boy Scouts donating lei to interred veterans at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific at Punchbowl, and the girls putting lei at the Kaneohe gravesites.