06-05-2025
Wooden American flags donated to veterans
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) — Some Jefferson High School students in Sioux Falls are showing off their patriotic pride by donating special gifts today to the Sioux Falls Veterans Community Project.
One by one, students donated wooden American flags that they built in class to a veteran living here at the Veterans Community Project, a village of tiny homes where a veteran can live with dignity and security.
'I absolutely love kids and I saw the school bus show up and I have seen all these American flags and I was like, wow, I was like these kids are spot on,' former Marine Eric Paxton said.
Emily's Hope, EMT react to proposed naloxone cuts
The flags were a partnership between the school and Paradigm Construction and Lumber, who donated all the wood.
'These flags took about four weeks to do, we started off with just some old lumber from construction sites,' Cooper Dykstra said.
Their teacher says this is a lesson that can't be taught in the classroom.
'One of the compasses of success we have at Jefferson is to serve and I wanted our students to be able to serve the community and by doing that we are serving the veterans here at the community project,' Wood Tech teacher Steve Hirsch said.
This is the fourth project for the Wood Tech class; they have one more left, but they say this one is probably the most meaningful.
'It's always good to give back to people who sacrifice their time,' Dykstra said. 'We're just giving it to them as a token of our gratitude.'
'It's completely amazing to feel like they actually care, you know they want to do something for their community or to give back to a few of us vets, it hits pretty hard,' Paxton said.
So now, the veterans have a home…
'Like that would be perfect,' Paxton said.
And so do their wooden flags.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
