Final push: Leadership group to help bring veterans memorial to life

For more than a decade, the local community has dreamed of a monument to the Greenwood area’s veterans.

The Greater Greenwood Veterans Memorial Committee envisioned a landscaped slice of land at the center of the city, with a brick walkway leading to a 16-foot-tall granite pillar with an eagle at the top. Benches and 6-foot-tall tablets featuring each branch of military service would be installed throughout the area.

Though they started the project in 2019, funding has been slow to materialize. Now, area organizers are hoping to finish what’s already been started.

“We want to get to the end. The finish line is in sight,” said Paul St. Pierre, chair of the veterans memorial committee. “What’s going to help on this final lap is Leadership Johnson County.

The veterans memorial committee partnered with a group from the Leadership Johnson County program to raise the money needed to turn the memorial into a reality. They hope to bring in donations from county businesses, organizations and individuals to start work on the monument in the spring.

At the same time, the goal is to simply make people aware that a memorial is possible.

“Overall, we really want to raise awareness. They’ve been trying to put this in for 20 years, and almost nobody in Johnson County knows about it,” said Rachel Patterson, a member of the Leadership Johnson County project team. “We definitely want to fundraise, but it’s not just about that. It’s about making sure people in the county can honor their loved ones, and this truly becomes a community memorial.”

The group is excited to help push such a worthy endeavor forward for the community.

“To be able to honor our veterans, and to help out this group that’s been planning this for so long, is a good feeling,” said Thomas Brodbeck, a member of the Leadership Johnson County team. “We can make an impact in downtown Greenwood with something where future events can be held and the community can come together.”

The story of Greenwood’s veterans memorial started in 2002, as the country continued to react to the tragedy of the Sept. 11 attacks. Local leaders and veterans wanted to create a monument in Greenwood specifically for those who had served in the past and would serve in the future.

“It started with a group of strong veterans and community members to try and create a memorial in downtown Greenwood to not only honor veterans, but to honor local police, fire and EMT — really a place to educate the community,” St. Pierre said

Plans were made for the memorial to be featured in Freedom Park, on the city’s west side, before the opportunity to locate on a slice of land between the Greenwood Public Library and the newly planned The Madison development in Old Town Greenwood.

A groundbreaking ceremony was held in April 2019, with hopes to unveil the monument during the 2020 Freedom Festival.

But fundraising waned, exasperated by the coronavirus pandemic. The project had reached a standstill.

“Right in the middle of our planning, the pandemic hit and it really stopped giving,” St. Pierre said.

Brodbeck learned all of this as he was brainstorming ideas he and his group could pursue for their Leadership Johnson County class. The community program prepares area residents for leadership roles, with a new class of participants going through the rigorous curriculum each year.

At the start of the program, participants break off into small groups, with each team required to envision and enact a project that would benefit the community.

As this year’s class separated into groups and discussed ideas in September, the Greenwood veterans memorial stood out to Brodbeck, Patterson and their other group members.

“Helping veterans stood out to a lot of our group members. We all had family members or friends who were veterans, so it fit well with what our group wanted to do,” Brodbeck said.

The Leadership Johnson County group reached out to the Greater Greenwood Veterans Memorial Committee, learned the story behind the project and where it stood currently, and decided helping see the memorial to completion would be a fitting goal.

“We wanted to get it done. It’s been thought about for 20 years, it’s a cool story, and the whole thing fit for us,” Brodbeck said.

For their role, the Leadership Johnson County group sees two phases of the project. The first is raising awareness about the memorial and what it would bring to Greenwood. But the most important aspect is fundraising.

“We want to make it easier for people to donate — more accessible,” Brodbeck said.

The Leadership Johnson County team started a GoFundMe page, which went live today, to draw attention to the project and provide a quick way for people to donate.

Through contacts with area businesses and organizations, they hope to arrange for donors to sponsor memorial pillars or benches that will make up the monument.

Plans are coming together for a major fundraising event at a later date. Organizers intend to sell personalized bricks for the memorial walkway during the event as well.

“We really want to place a community emphasis on this memorial,” Patterson said. “So someone who wants to honor a loved one, someone who served, we want there to be a way for everybody and anybody to do that.”

AT A GLANCE