Rotary Club fundraiser raises flags in patriotic salute on U.S. holidays
On a hot July Fourth weekend, Chip Dudine and his family moved from Indiana to McKinney. When they turned onto their new street, staked in the grassy front lawns of nearly every home were U.S. flags, waving in the breeze.
These weren’t flimsy flags on wooden sticks — the kind kids wave from curbs as parades march by. They were strung to metal poles taller than basketball players. They made a statement. “They remind you that it’s a special day,” he told The Dallas Morning News. “It makes you smile.”
The Rotary Club of McKinney Sunrise began leasing flags throughout the city more than two decades ago as a fundraiser.
Patriotism has boosted the program to nearly 1,800 flags on display for Memorial Day. The program has spread to other Rotary Clubs in the Dallas area and outside the state.
“People want to show their colors by flying the flag,” said Chuck Koehler, a charter member and chairman of the flag program.
Previously, the club unsuccessfully sold candy and grapefruit to raise money. In the early 1990s, a former colonel in the U.S. Air Force pitched the flag idea.
For $50 each year, residents pay to have the flags raised and taken down for six holidays, beginning with Memorial Day and ending with Veterans Day.
The club has raised $82,000 this year through the program. Most of the money is dedicated to building an all-abilities playground in McKinney — an addition to Bonnie Wenk Park that includes equipment accessible to children with developmental delays, special sensory requirements and other physical challenges. Sunrise has teamed with the Rotary Club of McKinney to raise money for the project.
About five years ago, the McKinney club began its own flag lease program under the guidance of Sunrise. Now the two clubs split the city, and they spread nearly 3,000 flags throughout McKinney for Memorial Day.
“There’s a lot of pride in doing the flag program,” said Paul Powell, a member of the McKinney club and co-chairman of its flag program. “It reminds you of the freedom we have.”
Sunrise also has advised clubs in Richardson, Prosper, Plano and Irving on how to start similar programs. A few years ago, the club created a flag program manual. Sunrise has sold the manual to more than 50 clubs.
Hills Creek Drive, where the Dudines live in western McKinney, was one of the first streets to join Sunrise’s program. Decades later, flags still line a majority of front yards.
Dudine jokes that it’s part of the deal when you buy a house on the street.
“It’s one thing to have bad grass. But to not have a flag?” he said, laughing.
Boy Scouts had come to his home on Wednesday to install a flag by his curb for the holiday weekend. A few feet away, it whipped back and forth in the gusty wind Thursday.
“People get jealous. If their neighbor gets a flag, they’ve got to have one, too,” Koehler said outside a storage unit where the club keeps about 2,500 flags.
Vans of Boy Scout troops funneled through a pickup line as club members loaded flags into the cars.
“It’s really something to see these up and down the street,” scoutmaster Mike Boese said.
“It gives you that hometown feel.”