Early in 2023, Mark Gelhar from the Hastings Veterans of Foreign Wars Lyle Russel Post 1210 (VFW) was shopping with Fleet Farm manager Marcie Jay for fishing poles to give away at the City of Hastings ‘Take a kid fishing’ event. During that shopping trip, they ended up on the topic of American flags and Jay had mentioned to Gelhar that they did not have a proper way to accept flags in need of retirement. That got the gears spinning for Gelhar.

Gelhar put things in motion with a phone call to Quality One Woodworking in the industrial park, looking for a donation of a custom box for Fleet Farm customers to deposit retired flags. Quality One jumped at the opportunity and knocked it out of the park. They designed and built a beautiful oak box with custom engraving on the top of the box.

“You'll see when you look at the box, Quality One Woodwork went above and beyond the call of duty with all that engraving. We did not ask for or expect that. Then, the VFW bought labels for it and I think we've got a beautiful box for retired flags,” explained Gelhar during the Fleet Farm unveiling.

That box did indeed turn out so beautiful that the VFW and Quality One Woodworking decided to make another.

“We have this one, we have one at Fleet Farm and the American Legion downtown, we think we have Hastings covered,” added Gelhar.

The box and stand were delivered to Terry’s Hardware at 375 33rd St. W. on the morning of July 25. Pete Terry, owner of Terry’s Hardware, was ecstatic about the upgrade.

“We’ve been collecting flags for decades and I think someone noticed our tired box needed an upgrade and Mark said, ‘we’re going to upgrade your box’ and we said okay,” explained Terry.

He paused, taking it all in, “Amazing upgrade…”

The moment of awe struck him for another pause as he admired the beautifully built box.

The cardboard box he was referring to had served its purpose well but needed to be retired as you can see in the accompanying photo.

Now, Hastings has three great locations to bring any damaged US flag for proper retirement. The VFW will collect retired flags every two to four weeks from Terry’s, the Legion and Fleet Farm and they will store them until the retirement ceremony is held once per year at a veteran camp at Marine on the St. Croix.

Recently, the VFW helped a Navy Cadet with a collection competition for retired flags where they gave her over 3,000 flags. Needless to say, she won the competition, but more importantly, they raised awareness around the proper way to dispose of a flag. They collect a lot of flags needing retirement and thanks to Quality One, they hope to collect event more.

Quality One Woodworking in the industrial park is a great community partner that has donated several boxes for flag retirement.

“From Quality One’s standpoint, we have a gentleman that makes these, he does a lot of custom work for us. So, we're glad that we have the opportunity to use our skills and our business to promote the flag return and we've got a couple locations here in town. It's a great opportunity for people to drop their flags and we're fortunate enough to be able to build the boxes for them.”

Quality One built an extra box for the VFW to use as a fundraising piece at their district meeting. Cannon Falls ended up purchasing the box for a $200 donation to the Hastings VFW.

What is the proper retirement of a flag?

The US Flag is the embodiment of freedom, a symbol that is to be honored. American flags should always be treated with respect and honor because they represent those who worked, fought and sacrificed their lives for our rights and freedoms. It also represents all of us; the hard-working people who make this country something to be proud of. In fact, Congress amended the Flag Code in 1976 to include the statement that the U.S. flag is a living entity and, as such, has all the rights thereof, including the right to exist and expire with dignity.

That means throwing a flag in the garbage is a huge no as it is not dignified. Disposal of a US Flag can be done at home, but it is a process to do so with dignity. A quick web search gives you the steps to do so and you will find that those instructions come from the VFW organization. Aside from the ceremonial aspect, most homeowners do not have a firepit that can be used to properly burn a flag. Which is where the drop box comes into play. If your flag is tattered or torn in any way, it is no longer fit for display and should be properly retired. The easy way to retire your flag now is to bring it to Fleet Farm or Terry’s Hardware and drop it in the box. Hastings residents can also bring the flag to the Legion downtown for retirement.