Crestwood Veterans Memorial Committee Seeking Donations

Crestwood Chief of Police Mike Paillou noticed that the Veterans Memorial in front of  had become very hard to see because the shrubbery surrounding it had become rather large and overgrown. This made the memorial itself virtually impossible to see, unless you walked up a set of stairs that looked like they led to the flag pole. He did not think this was a fitting tribute to our Crestwood Veterans who had given their lives in the service of our country. 

Paillou invited a number of us who were veterans to meet and discuss the situation with the current memorial. We met a number of times and discussed many ideas. "Word of mouth" brought some additional members.

We considered all possibilities including improving the current memorial, building a new one in the park and more. We are still considering new possibilities for the memorial and for raising funds. 

We did agree on several founding priciples: We will NOT seek, or use any funds from the City of Crestwood. We will get tax exempt approval from the state. We did get this a while back, so donations will be tax exempt. We will work to improve the memorial at city hall and not one at the park. 

We have been diligently working on raising funds for our project, mostly by setting up a table with pictures and information and taking donations and pledges. I would like to thank on Watson in Crestwood very much for letting us ask for donations there! Also the "" at the mall. And we recently sent letters to the people who filled out pledge cards, and they sent in their donations. We THANK ALL the folks who gave, or mailed in their kind donations! We are also happy to accept donations from businesses in and around Crestwood. 

We are very grateful that Connie Melching, executive secretary for the police department, has agreed to be a contact point for our committee. She can be reached at 314-729-4842 or cmelching@ci.crestwood.mo.us.