St. Augustine is making it easier for residents to respectfully retire worn flags by installing its American flag collection box inside the lobby of the financial services building at 50 Bridge St.
Two other locations include the St. Augustine Police Department, 151 King St., and another at the St. Augustine Fire Department, 101 Malaga St.
The program is a partnership between the First City Honor Guard of St Augustine VFW Post 2391 and the St Johns County American Flag Rescue Program.
Under the leadership of Chris Benjamin, through the St. Johns County Solid Waste Division of the Public Works Department, flag drop-off boxes have been placed around the county and city in convenient locations including but not limited to libraries, schools, city and county buildings, fire stations and police stations, as well as other locations like Ace Hardware stores, Lowe’s Home Improvement and Home Depot.
Flags collected at these sites are gathered by the county, counted and delivered to VFW Post 2391. There, they are combined with flags collected at the Post’s own drop-off bins for a monthly retirement ceremony. The First City Honor Guard retires the flags on the third Saturday of each month, following a ceremony that is open to the public.
Residents are invited to bring personal flags for retirement during the event.
Since the program began in 2019, more than 20,000 flags have been properly retired.
City manager David Birchim described the service as a reminder to properly retire flags with honor, respect and dignity.
“As our community celebrates America 250, and with Flag Day and Independence Day right around the corner, it’s likely that people will be taking stock in their flags and replacing old ones with new ones.”
Click here for a complete listing of flag drop-off locations or go to https://www.sjcfl.us/outreach/#flag.
This story was created by reporter Lucia Viti, lviti@usatodayco.com. with the assistance of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Journalists were involved in every step of the information gathering, review, editing and publishing process. Learn more at cm.usatoday.com/ethical-conduct.
This article originally appeared on St. Augustine Record: St. Augustine makes it easier to retire old flags with drop-off box
Reporting by Lucia Viti, St. Augustine Record / St. Augustine Record
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
