The memorial is selected to be placed in front of Pleasant View Senior Center.
Reminder Publishing submitted photo
EAST LONGMEADOW — East Longmeadow’s Veterans Memorial Committee is making a final push toward the $35,583 needed for the Town Council’s $100,000 donation match to raise enough for the memorial to be built.
With a total budget of $839,612, the committee has raised over $600,000 since 2018 to place the memorial in front of the Pleasant View Senior Center.
The Town Council allocated the matching donation at its June 23 meeting, giving the committee until Nov. 11 to raise $100,000 to receive the match. The committee has raised $64,417 since.
Veterans Committee Chair Terry Glusko said the memorial is being constructed to honor the 20 East Longmeadow veterans who sacrificed their lives in World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.
“Many businesses and financial institutions, as well as the people in East Longmeadow, have already generously donated over the last eight years and have helped get us to this critical point,” Glusko said. “The East Longmeadow Veterans Memorial Committee is asking those who have not donated to consider doing so.”
Glusko said the Town Council has been incredibly generous through the process but he is unsure if it would still match what the committee raises if the $100,000 mark isn’t made.
He compared the committee’s efforts before the Nov. 11 deadline to a football team in the red zone at the 1-yard line.
“I was trying to pinpoint those who have not donated, because there are businesses, financial institutions and people in the past eight years that have already donated two, three and four times,” Glusko said. “I sent out 4,454 letters to people in the community, 1,016 were business alone.”
The committee is keeping labor efforts local, placing ArchitectureEL and W.J. Quinn Co. as the companies constructing the memorial. Glusko said the plan is to have it open by Memorial Day in 2027.
“Everything is just waiting on the funding, the complete funding to begin,” Glusko said. “Everything is in place, as a matter of fact, all of our monuments are coming out of a quarry in Barre, Vermont. Those should be here maybe in November or December.”
Check donations can be made in-person or through mail at PeoplesBank, 201 North Main St., payable to the East Longmeadow Veterans Memorial Committee. Donations can also be mailed to the committee at P.O. Box 151. East Longmeadow.
