“Baby, you can do it.”
Those words from her late dad set Rockdale’s Elissa Benford-Roberts on a mission to create a memorial that would define the meaning of the city’s Veterans Park.
That mission culminated Veterans Day, 2020 with the unveiling at the city park of five stones dedicated to the military branches of the U.S. government.
“My dad gave the first donation,” Benford-Roberts told the crowd of 100 or so gathered at the park.
Other family members helped out, too, especially a cousin, who is retired from the Army and told her she wanted to buy a brick for a memorial in the San Antonio area where she lives.
“I told her I wouldn’t see that brick and I told her what I was doing,” Benford-Roberts said. “She said she was going to send me a check and a couple of days later she sent me a big check. I was shocked. That lifted me to another level.”
Other donations flowed from people, businesses, organizations and the city of Rockdale helped, too.
Chris Whittaker, the former city manager of Rockdale, was a big help, she said.
“He gave me a substantial donation,” she said.
He also gave her two designs for the tops of the stone monuments at the park.
“I picked one,” she said of the military logos of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard and Air Force.
The city also created sidewalks and the paved area where stones now sit sealed in place by setting compound to the right of the entrance of the city pool.
The Georgia gray granite monuments were first envisioned last October, Benford-Roberts said.
“I am on the city parks board and we had discussed doing this three years ago,” she said. “Last year in October, I decided to start raising money.”
“I said let me see if I can do this. I started asking $5 a person, you know hoping they would give more. I went to the VFW and American Legion and made presentations,” she said.
Her fundraising efforts paid off for the grateful citizenry gathered at the park for the ceremony and to admire the memorial.
“She had a vision. She came to the American Legion, the Veterans of Foreign Wars. She gathered a dollar here and a dollar there and look what she has done,” said American Legion Post 358 Commander Jim McKimmey.
“We are really proud to have veterans recognized at Veterans Park,” said City Manager Barbara Holly who noted her husband is a Marine veteran.
“I, too, want to thank her for this great memorial to our veterans,” Mayor John King said. “I appreciate the recognition that we didn’t get when we returned from Viet Nam. We were ignored really is the best way I can say it.”
The new memorial pleased Benford-Roberts. “When I came out here and saw this, I just could not get over it,” she said. “It is a fitting tribute to veterans.”
In the ceremony, Donald Stewart, the junior vice commander of VFW Post 6525, gave a tribute to both the day and the new memorial.
“We celebrate this day, we honor veterans today, because we know that without them, there would be no land of the free,” he said. “Thank you for honoring our veterans on this day.”
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