Seniors, adults with disabilities create Memorial Day arrangements for veterans' graves

Most people put little thought into where the artificial flowers they place on a loved one's grave end up after local cemeteries remove them for annual cleaning. This year, a group of local seniors and adults with disabilities repurposed some of those flowers for veterans' graves to mark Memorial Day.

District 2 Commissioner Brian Maughan and Jeremy Sparks of Dignity Memorial, came up with the idea of collecting the flowers from Dignity's Oklahoma City cemeteries and reconditioning them for a new use instead of just throwing them away.

That new use will be adorning the graves in Oklahoma Veterans Cemetery.

To pull off the repurposing of the flowers, Maughan brought Day Living Centers on board and enlisted further help from students at Westmoore and Southmoore high schools to help place them Thursday. Daily Living Centers is an adult day care program that offers respite care for caregivers by providing a safe, secure place for adults with disabilities and senior adults to engage in fun activities, community and more.

The center began volunteering through a specialized extension of Oklahoma County's SHINE program, created specifically for its participants, about a year ago. SHINE offers volunteer opportunities for people of all ages, with students at local high schools able to earn graduation honors for achieving enough hours.

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"Our participants, who attend our centers, they're the ones who created and put together these arrangements that we can put on the gravestones,” said Amanda Dirmeyer, vice president of development and social services for Daily Living Centers.

While a large number of Daily Living clients helped create the new arrangements, a much smaller group traveled to the cemetery to place them. Among that group were several participants with ties to the military.

“It was a honor to do this for our veterans. Our veterans deserve our respect,” said Brent Purinton, whose step-father is a veteran. “We’re showing them that with love, and letting them know that they’re not forgotten and that’s what it’s all about is to serve our veterans.”

Betty Hendricks, whose late husband served in the military, helped put a few of the arrangements together and was there to place them Thursday. Coming out to place the arrangements is an act of service to "special" people who served their country, she said.

For Al Bowman, a veteran who spends days at the center, the chance to honor other veterans brings a sense of pride, calling the fellow veterans he met while serving "perfect people."

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Avery Jouris, marketing and event manager, traveled to the cemetery in advance to count graves and ensure that the group made enough pieces. The group pulled apart the often oversized old floral arrangements, pulling out and cleaning up the flowers to use those in the best condition to create about 70 smaller individual arrangements.

"Our participants had to go through and cut them down into individual stems and then place them together, and then they got to get really creative with it, matching different flowers and different colors," Jouris said. "Then we got some red, white and blue ribbon, and they tied them all together in nice little bows."

Dirmeyer and Jouris say volunteering and giving back are opportunities their participants look forward to at Daily Living Centers, giving them a sense of  purpose and joy. They said they hope involvement in this project will show others the importance of inclusion and involvement for vulnerable populations, like those they serve. 

"Disability is not inability," Jouris said. "Just because our participants are older or may not function at the same level as everybody else, they still have the ability to do different things and they still have that want to engage in their community."

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Seniors, disabled adults decorate Oklahoma Veterans Cemetery for Memorial Day