Commissioners OK $100,000 for Gold Star Families Memorial being built in downtown Elyria

ELYRIA — The Lorain County Board of Commissioners on Tuesday approved a grant of $100,000 for the Lorain County Gold Star Families Memorial Monument being constructed in downtown Elyria.

The money, which came from COVID-19 relief funds, will fund the memorial that is a partnership between the Woody Williams Foundation Inc. and a group of Lorain County veterans to honor Gold Star families.

Ground already has been broken for the memorial, which is being built behind the Old County Courthouse in downtown Elyria. Construction will take three weeks and a dedication ceremony is planned for 1:30 p.m. Sept. 29.

A Gold Star family is one that has lost a family member who died as the result of active duty military service. As of September 2023, there were an estimated 14 such families in Lorain County, though there probably are many more.

Jacob Smith, the director of the Lorain County Veterans Service Commission, co-chairman of the Gold Star Families Memorial Monument committee, and a U.S. Army veteran of the Iraq War, said the total estimated cost of the monument is $340,000.

Smith said the location at the back of the Old Courthouse symbolizes justice and that is “sacred land” in Lorain County.

“This is not some place where you just throw anything up. It is as near to the heart of the county of Lorain as anything could ever be,” he said. “This memorial is to the families for us as a county to acknowledge their suffering. So that they know that Lorain County cares about what they had to go through.”

Included in the cost estimate is $195,000 for the concrete pad and footers, landscaping, lighting, permits and some labor; $65,000 for the memorial, three matching benches and a Gold Star Families Memorial Monument marker; $35,000 for branch of service markers for the Army, U.S. Navy, U.S. Air Force, U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Coast Guard and Space Force; $30,000 goes to the Woody Williams Foundation for administration and management fees; $12,000 for architectural documents and design fees; and $5,000 for advertising and planning fees for the Sept. 29 event.

Ahead of Tuesday’s meeting, Smith said the memorial had received $247,000 in donations, including $100,000 from the Lorain County Visitors Bureau; $50,000 from the Lorain County Honor Fund; $20,000 from the VSC; nine donations in amounts ranging from $4,000 to $15,000 from multiple veterans organizations in the county; and $1,000 from the Blue Star Mothers of America Inc.

The memorial is made from black granite, and will have benches and flagpoles around it.

Assisting with the memorial location design was Clark & Post Architects Inc., the same firm that designed the Lorain County Police & Fire Memorial, also on Courthouse Square.

There are 127 such memorials in the nation, including 12 in Ohio. A 13th is being planned in Columbus. The two closest to Lorain County are in Cleveland and Medina.

The Board of Commissioners in 2022 approved the creation of the Lorain County Honor Fund to help veterans, including spending on memorials, job and other veteran support programs.

The board on Tuesday also OK’d spending $46,000 from the Honor Fund to help Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 1662 on Cleveland Street in Amherst replace ceiling tiles, carpet and lighting and to paint its walls to make the post more appealing for members, guests and rentals.

Smith said the post needs the repairs to replace the carpeting in its bar, and ceiling tiles that were yellowed by years of indoor smoking.

The board also approved $25,000 from the Honor Fund for improvements to the Disabled American Veterans Post 20 on West Erie Avenue in Lorain.

The DAV will use the money to fix the concrete in its parking lot, buy a refrigerator and a freezer and to build a storage building to store its lawn mowers, Smith said.

“Thank you all for your help and your work,” said Don Attie of DAV 20, a former Lorain County Veterans Service commissioner and president of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Committee of Lorain County. “It will help us move forward and better serve our veterans and our community.”

Smith said veterans posts can’t use the profits they get from charitable gaming to do work that is needed on their buildings. He said he would be back before the board before the end of the year with more requests for funding.

“This is what the Honor Fund was established for,” Commissioner David Moore, a Republican, said.