Township could add ‘Hero’ banners
Towamencin Avenue, Forty Foot Road, park could be sites of banners
Another town could soon join the growing list of local municipalities that honor their ‘“Hometown Heroes” with decorative banners.
Towamencin Township is the latest to join on to recognize area veterans with decorative banners, after hearing firsthand from organizer Anne Henning Scheuring how she was inspired by a similar display in a small town upstate, and how quickly the program took off in Lansdale.
“Their street had 20 or 25 banners with the American flag, and it was just an emotional, really beautiful thing. And I thought, ‘I’d like to see this in my hometown of Lansdale,’” Scheuring said.
“It went from 50, to 100, 200, 300, and ultimately 413, and the borough said ‘Slow down,’ because it was taking a toll on our Public Works guys,” she said.
The explosive growth of the Hometown Heroes banner in Lansdale in 2016 led to a cap in that town of 500 local veterans for this year, and Scheuring told Towamencin’s board Wednesday night that that num-
ber will stay fixed until the program comes up for approval again in 2019. In the meantime, other area municipalities have signed on to the effort, and banners now hang in North Wales Borough and Hatfield Township, while Upper Gwynedd announced earlier this week that they also plan to take part starting next year.
“I was asked, ‘Is this a nonprofit or for-profit?’ It’s me. I’m a volunteer who founded this, and I do it on my own — my husband helps me,” Scheuring said, pointing to husband Ed, who was also depicted on the demonstration banner.
Those who take part would pay the nonprofit established by Scheuring for the banner, which would be installed on a light or utility pole in the township by, in this case, Towamencin’s Public Works staff. The banners would hang from Memorial Day in late May to Veterans’ Day on Nov. 11, and Scheuring said the first year’s success in Lansdale led her and her husband to add more personalized features, including black ribbons on the banners of those killed in action.
“I just have to commend you for this. I drive down Main Street every day going to work, and it is so beautiful,” said supervisor Laura Smith.
“It’s really neat when you put them back up again in the spring, watching the Facebook feed, of people talking about ‘I found my father, I found my brother, I found my uncles.’ It’s so neat knowing everybody is out there, finding their family,” Smith said.
Nearly all of the utility poles in Towamencin are owned by either PECO or PP&L and the township would need their permission to install the banners, according to Township Manager Rob Ford, but roughly 100 decorative light fixtures along Towamencin Avenue and Forty Foot Road, and running up to the pedestrian bridge over Forty Foot, are owned by the township and could be appropriate sites for the banners.
“I think Towamencin Avenue, which is supposed to be the gateway (to the township), and Forty Foot Road would be ideal places to put them. There’s lots of travel back and forth on both roads,” said Supervisor Dan Littley.
Another location could also be designated for those killed in action: the park currently known as ‘Firehouse Park,’ located on Bustard Road across from the Towamencin Volunteer Fire Company’s station, which the board discussed renaming and converting into an area to recognize veterans in 2010.
“I would like to see Firehouse Park finally be renamed to ‘Veterans’ Park.’ We took that action years ago, and let’s, as a first action there, try to get the Veterans committee to look at putting a circular, memorial area in there, for some of these: maybe the KIA and MIA,” Littley said.
Ford said that topic will be raised with the board’s Veterans and Open Space and Parks committees, and the costs of buying brackets and dedicating staff time to the banners will be discussed as the township’s 2018 budget is finalized. The supervisors then voted unanimously to direct staff to proceed with making arrangements for participating in the banner program in 2018.
For more information on the Hometown Heroes banner program, contact Scheuring at 215-855-1743 or email heroes@verizon. net. Towamencin’s supervisors next meet at 7:30 p.m. on Nov. 8 and the Open Space and Parks Advisory committee next meets at 7 p.m. on Nov. 13, both at the township administration building, 1090 Troxel Road. For more information or meeting agendas and materials visit www. Towamencin.org.