Several groups to donate seed money and volunteer hours to place
Stars and Stripes downtown
GILROY – Less than two months after Flag Day in downtown Gilroy went flagless for at least the 10th straight year, a community effort to get Old Glory flying again alongside Monterey Street for patriotic holidays has taken a few steps forward.
About half a dozen Gilroy organizations, including the Chamber of Commerce, Gilroy Downtown Development Corporation, the Exchange Club of Gilroy and The Dispatch, have pledged $300 each in seed money to erect 100 flags on Monterey Street from First to 10th streets. The American Legion, the Veteran’s of Foreign Wars post and the Boy Scouts have also expressed interest in donating seed money, volunteer hours or both to make sure the stars and stripes fly again.
“That should be enough to get things going,” said Susan Valenta, the executive director of the Gilroy Chamber of Commerce. “The community is very excited to have something like this. It will be quite beautiful, you can imagine what it will look like when all the flags are flying on the street.”
The plan is to put five flags per city block on each side of the street through Gilroy’s downtown. However, the Monterey Street sidewalk only has 30 existing flagpole holes.
“That’s the one glitch so far,” Valenta said. “We think buying the flags and flagpoles will cost about $3,000, but we don’t yet have a handle on how much the drilling will run.”
The community groups are meeting again Sept. 9 to put together a presentation for City Council. Council will be asked to approve, and partially fund, the effort to redrill the holes.
The Boy Scouts, Valenta said, would be in charge of erecting and lowering the flags each holiday. A storage place for the flags has not yet been determined.
The original set of flags were no longer raised about 10 years ago when wear and tear took their toll on the pennants. The flags also showed only 48 stars.
Valenta said anyone interested in donating to the patriotic cause could write a check payable to the Exchange Club of Gilroy, which is a service club focusing on Americanism, youth and community services. Checks can be dropped off at or sent to the Gilroy Chamber of Commerce office at 7471 Monterey Street.
“If everything goes well, we plan to have the flags up by Nov. 11 (Veteran’s Day), but it all hinges on those flagpole holes,” Valenta said.
