GUILDERLAND — Michelle Viola-Straight, president since July of the Guilderland Chamber of Commerce, said she has seen Hometown Heroes banners in towns all over the country since her own son became a Marine three years ago, but that she was never in a position “to make it happen” in Guilderland.

Until now.

In late October, the town and chamber together launched a Hometown Heroes banner project, honoring local veterans with banners hung from streetlamps and utility poles. Each banner has a veteran’s photograph, name, rank, years served, and branch of service. The name of the person or company sponsoring the banner will also be added.

The veterans must be current or former residents of Guilderland (including the village of Altamont), Berne, Knox, or Westerlo.

During this, the first year of the program, there will be just 28 banner sites available. The sites are in Tawasentha Park and outside the Guilderland Public Library, and the banners will be sold on a first-come, first-served basis.

“We don’t want them on highways, because you won’t be able to read them, so we wanted a more calm setting,” said Guilderland Supervisor Peter Barber.

Twenty-five of the 28 banners for 2018 will be displayed on the light poles in Tawasentha Park, she said. The other three will be hung on poles outside the library. The town will cover the cost of the brackets needed to hang them, she said.

The park banners will be located around the loop, in front of the swimming pool, said Barber.

The $150 cost of manufacturing one banner will be paid privately by the family of the veteran honored or by a local business. The veteran’s family will receive the the banner after is displayed through much of 2018.

Linda Cure, Guilderland’s public-relations officer, said that an opening ceremony is planned for the spring and that, at a closing ceremony to be held around Veterans Day, the banners will be given to the families.

The information on the banners will also be posted online, together with biographies of each man or woman, said Viola-Straight, and will remain up even after the banners are taken down. Each year, the website will continue to grow, with the addition of more veterans. There will also be a map online, she said, showing the location of each banner.

Guilderland Public Library Director Timothy Wiles said that he recently was elected to the Guilderland Chamber of Commerce’s board of directors, and heard about this initiative at his first or second meeting, and knew that the library had several poles with brackets already on them.

“We used to have four library banners up, and now we have just one. Weather has taken its toll,” he said.

Wiles noted that he hopes that one of the library’s banners will honor the late Frank Sheehan, a library board member for many years and a founding member of the library foundation.

Sheehan was, according to his 2015 obituary, a glider trooper with the 101st Airborne Division - Signal Company during World War II and took part in the Battle of the Bulge.

“Quite a guy,” said Wiles, who added that he “had the pleasure of serving with” Sheehan on the library foundation.

The banners will be standard size, Cure said, 30 by 60 inches.

Businesses that wish to donate to cover the cost of one or more banners can do so, even if they do not have particular veterans in mind to honor.

“For businesses, it’s a very inexpensive way to advertise: just $150,” said Viola-Straight.

Likewise, if a family member or friend wants to honor a particular vet, but does not have the funds to pay for a banner, the chamber of commerce will try to match up the family with a sponsoring business. In that case, said Viola-Straight, the family member should fill out an application, giving all the necessary information including a brief biography.

“We’re trying to be as inclusive as possible,” said Barber, adding, “I know we already have a number of businesses interested in sponsoring.”

Banners galore

Cure said that banners are different from signs, and do not require the approval of any town boards. She pointed out that the village of Altamont has banners, along Main Street and Maple Avenue, that read, “Welcome to Altamont, est. 1890,” as does McKownville; its banners along Western Avenue and Fuller Road proclaim, “McKownville, Guilderland’s Walkable Neighborhood, estab. 1765.”

There are also banners on Washington Avenue Extension, welcoming visitors to the Pine Bush, Cure said.

Barber said that, in the spring, there may be a few banners, directing people to the Pine Bush Discovery Center, located on Niagara Mohawk poles, probably in the area of the intersection of routes 20 and 155. “We’re working now on design and placement,” he said. “We don’t want too much clutter out there.”

Of the Hometown Heroes project, Cure said, “We’ve had very good feedback so far.”

“I think people will find it very well done,” Barber said. “It’s being done out of respect.”

As the project was taking shape, Viola-Straight said, she spoke with representatives of the city of Schenectady and the Downtown Schenectady Improvement Corporation, who shared a lot of useful information about the logistics of their banners project, she said, including the manufacturing company they used, the quality of banners, how to bracket them, how to get information needed for the banners, and what should be included on the website.

She learned from representatives of other towns, Viola-Straight said, that the first year is a lot of work, getting the project up and running. “Then, by the time you get them hung, and people see the signs, everybody wants one. Once people see them up on the posts, you’ll have people calling all the time, saying they want one,” she said.

Viola-Straight has already started sharing her knowledge with surrounding towns, she said. She is working with representatives of Duanesburg, she said, who are very interested in starting a project there. She has also had “some interest from Latham as well,” she said.

In Albany County, in New Scotland, a single banner was hung in August on a utility pole in front of the town hall to honor World War II veteran Art Hamilton, paid for by his friend, Patriot Guard Rider Don Miller.

The city of Watervliet has a program that has been running for about three years, said Christine Chartrand, secretary to Mayor Mike Manning. In Watervliet’s program, banners are not given to the families.

Instead, the city puts up the same banners year after year, adding in new ones each time; it now has close to 400 banners that line the city streets and also the Veterans’ Memorial Park, from May through November, Chartrand said.

In Rensselaer County, Troy also has a thriving banners program.

Viola-Straight said she believes that Guilderland’s banners project is going to be “the start of something very large in Albany County, where you’re going to see a sharing of information.”