The Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa, or RAGBRAI, begins Monday as bikers will make their way from Orange City to Guttenberg during the week-long event.
Along the route, some veterans will be honored by the Veterans Flagpole Initiative, a group of about 50 people who aim to install a flagpole in the yards of veterans across Iowa.
Originally formed in 2021, VFI has installed over 130 flags to date and plans to install flagpoles along the RAGBRAI route next week for five veterans, including for veterans in Aplington and Parkersburg. Derek Snakenberg is a member of the initiative and tells RadioOnTheGo News the group’s mission is to give back to veterans at no cost.
“The guys who started it, they are veterans themselves and they wanted to do some good and show their kids that there is still good that exists in the world with everything going on and they wanted just to be that leader in that group. So what they did is they funded their own first flagpoles. The first 40 were 90% funded by the guys on the team. And then after that, a lot of it was either crowdsourced or donations came through. So the goal is to install one flagpole in every (one of Iowa’s) 99 counties of the state. And right now we’re around 40 counties in. Recently we have flagpoles (installed) in Iowa, Montana, Texas and Illinois.”
Snakenberg says the goal of the initiative is to have at least one flagpole installed in each Iowa county by 2028.
“What we do is we either have a veteran that’s nominated or one has brought up information to us. And depending on where that veteran lives, that goes to a certain territory where we have five or six teams of guys and each team has about four or five guys on a team. And that flagpole is pushed to that territory. Those guys go and install that flag pole for that veteran. And we kind of have a small little thank you service, a presentation of the flag for that veteran. And it’s just a nice thank you in a way to honor their service and their sacrifice.”
For more information on the Veterans Flagpole Initiative, including ways to donate, you can visit veteranflagpoles.org or visit their Facebook page.
Photo courtesy of Veterans Flagpole Initiative Facebook page
