Sign up to Fly the Flag

By Amanda Rogers

Mansfield Record

Seven days a year, Mansfield turns red, white and blue thanks to the Mansfield Rotary Club and a couple of Boy Scout troops.

The Rotary Club started the Fly the Flag program years ago, planting the Star Spangled Banner in residents’ yards. Residents sign up for the program for $50 annually. Enrollment in the program is currently open, running through April 30. To sign up, go to the Rotary Club’s home page.

“The first flag day is Memorial Day,” explained Rotary Club President Joanie Pace. “We have to have the new accounts and need to be sure the sleeves are in the ground.”

Club members plant a small sleeve to hold the flag pole in front of the resident’s house, then spray paint a small wheel on the curb to make it easy to find. Boy Scouts from Troops 1993 and 215 then place the flags and pick them up on seven holidays: Memorial Day, Flag Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Patriots Day (9/11), Veterans Day and Presidents Day.

Currently, the Rotary Club has more than 500 residents signed up across several Mansfield neighborhoods.

“When it started, the Rotarians would actually deliver them,” said Brent Aldridge, Rotary Club treasurer. “At some point, they partnered with the Boy Scouts. It’s been beneficial for both because we pay them.

“We do it within particular neighborhoods or case by case,” Aldridge said. “Our main goal is to build out neighborhoods we already have.”

Another Rotary Club has the same program in Arlington, he explained. When a resident moved from Arlington to Mansfield, she was ready to sign up again – but she lived in a brand-new neighborhood that wasn’t on the Rotarians’ Fly the Flag route.

“I told her that we typically do established neighborhoods,” Aldridge said. “She called the next day and said ‘I think I have nine neighbors signed up.’ Now that neighborhood is on the route.”

The Fly the Flag program is one of the Rotary Club’s major fund-raisers, which they use to benefit their charities – Habitat for Humanity, The Phoenix Academy, veterans and international programs, Pace and Aldridge said.

For more information, go to mansfieldrotary.org.

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