The Daughters of the American Revolution, Mariana Islands Chapter is a non-profit organization. DAR held a meeting on Oct. 31. DAR honors fallen heroes by beautifying Veteran facilities and memorials.

On Guam, sometimes it’s easy to forget that our memorial parks need maintenance. Unfortunately, it’s also just as easy to forget how quickly paint fades causing the names of our Chamorro Veterans to become barely visible.

The yellow Veterans Wall located on route 10 in Mangilao needs help. This wall contains 76 names of the Guam sons who gave their life in the Vietnam War.

This meeting discussed their upcoming project to repaint all the names on the Veterans Wall to remind the people of Guam what these men have sacrificed.

DAR regent Alice Hadley said, “We also plan to map and identify the graves in some private cemeteries on Guam, the idea is to provide some genealogical records to anyone who’s interested in Chamorro families.”

This will be posted on www.findagrave.com so that people overseas will be able to track their family roots in Guam.

DAR consist’ of thirteen chair members who encourage women to be interested in family history, supporting the community with patriotic history, and to have better bonds with their families.

“If their family members can see who has survived hardship in their family history, they realize that they’re not the only one who’s had a hard time,” said Hadley.

Children who know their family history have stronger bonds with their families and their community. They tend to do better in school and in other social activities.

“When people think of DAR, they think of a bunch of white haole ladies like us, but we have a number of members who are Chamorro,” said Jillette Leon-Guerroro.

To commemorate Guam’s history, every DAR meeting contains a Chamorro minute in their agenda where they recite parts from the book “Daughters of The Island” by Laura Souder.

DAR is also proud to mention that they have a fellow Triton as a member of their organization. Ashley Quintanilla, a Communication Major, expecting to graduate Spring 2016, is also an active member.

The DARs Mariana Islands Charter was founded on April 21, 2012, and has been continuing to work hard since.

With over 177,000 members and 3,000 chapters throughout the United States, and 13 foreign countries, DAR is also known as the largest patriotic organization in the world.

DAR welcomes any volunteers willing to help repaint the yellow Veterans Wall in Mangilao.

For more information about how you can help, please contact the Daughters of the American Revolution: Mariana Islands Chapter at http://www.marianaislandsdar.org/