By Kamryn Martell
Signal Staff Writer
With the 250th birthday of the United States coming up, community members kicked off the festivities with a barbecue celebrating Flag Day and America 250 at Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 6885 in Canyon Country on Sunday afternoon.
Attendees at the barbecue got to enjoy the smell of hamburgers and hot dogs on the grill, live music, and saw veterans get recognition for their service with a Purple Hearts certificate.
Karen Frost, head of the Santa Clarita Valley America 250 committee, said that the celebration of America 250 only happens once so the group wants to make it special.
“We decided to celebrate American exceptionalism … so, this is the one that we picked, and we decided we were going to celebrate American exceptionalism from Flag Day to Independence Day, and we were just going to have a party to kick it off,” Frost said.
Frost added that she remembers the U.S. bicentennial when she was a toddler and now seeing the celebration of 250 years makes her happy.
“We have a full place of people. They’re still coming in, and we have hot dogs and hamburgers and watermelon and chips, and we have a dessert table … and we have local girls from our high school choir singing the national anthem, and local young people doing the presentation of colors, and the local Army recruiter doing the pledge of allegiance. And my pastor doing the invocation, (it’s) just a community event,” Frost said.
R.J. Kelly, president of Vietnam Veterans of America Chapter 355, said it was great to see the community coming out to support the veterans – noting that he was glad to see new veterans he had never seen before. He added that the camaraderie and seeing people celebrate the 250th birthday of the U.S. was wonderful.
“Well, I think (the) majority of us all fought for our country, either groups on the ground, but my belief is it takes every nationality, it takes every branch of service, it takes every job deployment to make us successful,” Kelly said about the importance of celebrating veterans and Flag Day.
Kelly said it was special to be at the celebration, especially because he was being recognized during the Purple Hearts recognition.
“Purple Hearts is something that’s received for being wounded in action. So, people are shot; they’re blown up, whatever the case may be, but they’re entitled to a Purple Heart for their service,” Kelly said.
Patsy Ayala, mayor pro tem for the city of Santa Clarita, joined the festivities and was beaming with joy.
Ayala said the event reminded her of the inaugural game of the World Cup from the past weekend.
“We just had on Friday the inauguration of the World Cup and it was beautiful to listen to the national anthem. Yes, it was amazing to see the flag going up. Yes, it was amazing to see 50,000 people screaming: ‘USA, USA.’ Well, this is our USA moment locally,” Ayala said.
