David Woolpert parked his car in front of a home on Cote Hill Road early Friday morning, popped open the trunk and got to work.
From a pile of metal poles and tightly-wrapped American flags, he picked one of each and assembled the pieces together to make a staff eight feet tall with a flag falling gently to one side. Then, he stuck the flag in a post, went back to his car and repeated the process 30 more times.
“It creates a sense of togetherness,” Woolpert said. “I don’t know what else creates that.”
The club started the Community Flag Project in 2020 as a fundraising effort also designed to encourage unity in turbulent times.
Since then, Rotary club members, like Woolpert, have put out flags for one week each Veterans Day, Memorial Day, Juneteenth, Fourth of July, Flag Day, Independence Day, Labor Day and 9/11. Residents and businesses donate $55 a year to have the flags return to stand on their properties on each of those holidays.
With over 350 subscribers across Henniker, Hillsborough and Bradford, the Community Flag Project is the Rotary’s biggest fundraiser, according to Jennifer Lopez, who leads it. It’s also a big deal to the volunteers who keep it going: About 18 volunteers, or route masters, helped prop up flags across all three towns on Thursday and Friday.
“They’re doing it because they believe in it, they believe in what rotary does, they believe in the flag project,” said Lopez, who owns SuperScoops in Henniker. “I think it brings the community really close together, when we see flags going up throughout the community.”
Other rotary clubs are also staking flags for Veterans Day. The Capital City Sunrise Rotary Club based in Concord recently placed small flags next to grave markers at the New Hampshire State Veterans Cemetery. In Nashua, the rotary club will hold its first annual Veterans Day breakfast on Tuesday at 8 a.m. ahead of the city’s parade.
In Henniker, several businesses have purchased flags to support the club.
Travis Whittier, who works at the New Harvester Market in Henniker, said the business bought six flags to hang around the front of the store.
“We want to support the community we’re in,” he said.
Lopez said she always admired what the flag represented. Her parents immigrated from Guatemala and instilled in her a sense of American pride at a very young age. She went on to join junior ROTC at her high school in Boston and served with the Boston Police Department for five years.
With each one of those events and milestones, Lopez said she developed a deeper and deeper appreciation for the flag and the United States.
“The flag was a central part of unity,” Lopez said. “No matter what you looked like, there was a unity of where we lived, what we have. And the flag was always there.”
The Henniker Area Rotary Club uses the money from the flag project and other fundraisers it holds to support local nonprofits, food pantries and scholarships. The club even travels outside of New Hampshire for some projects, including building school rooms and community centers in Honduras every year.
Woolpert said some people subscribe to the program but don’t want a flag staked in front of their homes because of the flag’s association with the federal government, but for the most part, people across the political spectrum choose to show off their flags.
“Most people think it’s a good thing to do if you love this country,” Woolpert said.
In Lopez’s view, the American flag represents the good, the bad and the ugly and it should still be embraced as a symbol of unity in a polarized country.
“A flag has a story, a flag has a history,” Lopez said. “It’s not always good, but it is our history. It’s what we do with it that makes us a stronger and more loving community.”