No holiday season would be complete without the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) putting out at least one piece about the racket that is Wreaths Across America, the so-called “non-profit” that each year carpet bombs all of our national and other veterans cemeteries with millions of Christmas wreaths that, in a colossal conflict of interest, it buys from its own for-profit Christmas wreath company.
This season’s Wreaths Across America post is coming a bit late because of MRFF’s being consumed through the month of December by the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), with Christian nationalist Rep. Mike Turner’s NDAA amendment to shut MRFF down hanging over our heads, a six-month ordeal that at long last ended just before Christmas with the best possible of outcomes for MRFF.
With the saga of Rep. Turner’s failed attempt to shut MRFF down now behind us, I need to do some catching up with a couple of pieces that I ordinarily would have posted in December, and first on my belated Christmas list is Wreaths Across America.
This year’s Wreaths Across America story has something for everyone — migrant worker issues, sexual harassment allegations, housing violations, workplace safety violations, environmental destruction, as well as the usual mega-profits made by the family that runs this so-called “non-profit,” and, of course, its annual desecration of non-Christian veterans’ graves.
In past years, MRFF has exposed how Wreaths Across America, much to the anger and utter disgust of the families of non-Christian veterans buried in the cemeteries that are converged upon each year by its wreath-wielding hordes of volunteers, desecrates the graves of non-Christian veterans with countless photos taken by MRFF clients of Wreaths Across America Christmas wreaths indiscriminately deposited on graves clearly marked with Jewish, Muslim, Atheist, and other non-Christian faith symbols. While Wreaths Across America claims that it does not place its wreaths on non-Christian graves, the numerous photos sent to MRFF (see here, here and here) prove that claim to be a lie.
While the desecration of non-Christian veterans’ graves has been the primary concern of MRFF and its clients, in a pair of posts in 2021 I also delved into the Wreaths Across America’s shady money-making scheme of the same family that founded and runs the so-called “non-profit” Wreaths Across America also owning the for-profit Christmas wreath company that Wreaths Across America buys all of its millions of wreaths from every year, to the tune of tens of millions of dollars.
As I wrote in a post titled “So-called “non-profit” claims its Xmas wreaths aren’t Xmas wreaths – but sells them as Xmas wreaths,” one of my two 2021 posts on the subject:
The Worcester Wreath Co. of Columbia Falls, Maine, referring to its supplying of the Christmas wreaths placed on every veterans’ graves in thousands of cemeteries across the country each year, including 145 of the 155 national cemeteries, by the organization Wreaths Across America, proudly boasts on its website's "About Us” page, (emphasis added):
“It is from these same sacred forests that the wreaths used by Wreaths Across America in the annual wreath-laying ceremonies are handcrafted. We’re honored and proud that our commitment to integrity and quality led to them to choose us as their provider of quality wreaths.”
To put it plainly, this statement is total bullshit.
Wreaths Across America didn’t choose the Worcester Wreath Co., and certainly not because of its integrity. Wreaths Across America was created by Morrill Worcester, the owner of the Worcester Wreath Co., and Morrill Worcester’s wife, Karen Worcester, is the executive director of Wreaths Across America!
In other words, the Worcesters’ for-profit Christmas wreath company created a non-profit organization that has a need for millions of Christmas wreaths every year, then their non-profit gave the sole contract for these millions of Christmas wreaths to none other than their own for-profit company.
As I also noted in that post, a 2018 article from Nonprofit Quarterly magazine, titled “Wreaths Across America: Is a Nonprofit Built on Conflict of Interest Still a Nonprofit?,” revealed that not long after the Worcester Wreath Co. lost its decades-old contract with L.L. Bean, which had provided 90% of its business, the Worcesters’ non-profit Wreaths Across America was expanded, and as of 2018 was providing between 75% and 80% of the Worcester Wreath Co.’s revenue.
As I wrote in my other 2021 post, “Wreaths Across America gets a FAILING GRADE on its finances from Charity Navigator,” in that year, the non-profit watchdog Charity Navigator gave Wreaths Across America a failing grade of 65 on its finances and accountability. Charity Navigator gave MRFF a stellar 100% “Give with Confidence” grade on its finances and accountability. And yet, very oddly, Fox News got Matt Viola, Charity Navigator’s “Vice President of Customer Success,” whatever that is, to say the exact opposite of what his own organization had determined about Wreaths Across America and MRFF, defending Wreaths Across America and questioning MRFF. Just as oddly, Charity Navigator has raised Wreaths Across America’s grade to 75, although Wreaths Across America, according to its tax filings, did not submit to the scrutiny of an independent audit for 2022, the biggest factor in its getting its previous failing grade.
CharityWatch, however, which rates fewer non-profits than Charity Navigator but delves much deeper into those that it does rate, came out with a scathing report on Wreaths Across America in December with a lengthy and in-depth post on its blog titled “Wreaths Across America Paid Over $20 Million to a Company Owned by the Families of Two of its Board Members.”
The scrutiny of Wreaths Across America is coming from both CharityWatch and Military Times, with CharityWatch’s report saying:
“CharityWatch and The Military Times are raising serious questions about who may benefit most from this effort given that the vast majority of the charity’s sponsorship revenue goes to a wreath supply company owned by the husbands of two of its board members.”
As Laurie Styron, CEO and executive director of CharityWatch, told Military Times for an article titled “$30M military wreath charity buys solely from its founders’ farm,” also published last month:
“If it is the case that the for-profit vendor would collapse or need to significantly downsize were it to lose the business of the charity, it is a glaring conflict of interest to have owners of that vendor on the charity’s board or in key staff positions.”
And that certainly would be the case for the Worcester Wreath Co., which has publicly said itself that 75% to 80% of its annual revenue comes from its self-created, tailor-made customer Wreaths Across America.
So, how much of this Wreaths Across America bonanza is pure profit for the Worcester family? Well, The Wall Street Journal, in a 2015 article titled “Wreaths Across America Has Family Ties to Its Supplier,” reported that Rob Worcester, a son of Morrill and Karen Worcester, said that the Worcester Wreath Co.’s profit on each wreath it sells to Wreaths Across America at that time was $1.20. So, even if the Worcesters’ profit per wreath is still what it was eight years ago, with over 3.2 million wreaths sold to Wreaths Across America for its 2023 national wreath bombing, the Worcester family raked in close to $4 million in pure profit for themselves from their so-called “non-profit.”
The Wall Street Journal also reported that other Maine wreath companies had no chance of wresting any of this Wreaths Across America business from the tight grip of the Worcester family. As WSJ wrote:
“Some Maine wreath suppliers say they could sell wreaths to the charity for a dollar or two cheaper than the Worcester company. Potential suppliers have contacted the charity asking to bid, but it doesn’t accept such offers, Ms. Worcester said.”
"The exclusive relationship between the Worcester charity and company 'has been a thorn in my side for a long time,' said Steve Gay, who recently sold his wreath company in Machias, Maine.
"Added David Whitney, a Worcester rival who now supplies L.L. Bean: 'There are plenty of wreath producers here in Downeast Maine who would love to participate in that growth.'”
But the scandalous behavior of the Worcester Wreath Co. goes far beyond its Wreaths Across America profiteering.
Worcester Wreath Co.’s use and treatment of migrant workers
Columbia Falls and Harrington, the towns in Maine where Worcester Wreath Co.’s facilities are located, have populations of 476 and 962, respectively, according to the 2020 census. So, where do the Worcesters get the workforce of 500 to 700 wreath makers it needs to make those millions of Christmas wreaths for Wreaths Across America each year? Well, migrant workers, of course. Now, there is nothing unusual about that in itself. Other area businesses use seasonal migrant workers for the area’s big industries of blueberry picking and wreath making. Its Worcester Wreath Co.’s long history of labor safety violations, sexual abuse complaints, failure to pay overtime, failure to report worker injuries and illnesses, including one death in 2021 resulting from its lax COVID policies, and other violations that sets it apart. Worcester has also been fined for housing violations for the company-owned dormitories that it houses its hundreds of migrant workers in, as recently as 2022 being fined for failing to “conduct pre-occupancy inspections and obtain water tests,” according to a Department of Labor spokesman.
Worcester also makes a habit of trying to palm off its violations on the labor contractors it uses, such as when Worcester’s human resources manager told OSHA that the “vast majority” of employees sickened in its 2021 COVID outbreak worked for farmworker contractors, not Worcester itself. An OSHA investigator, however, found that only about half of the 80 sickened workers were contractor employees and that 38 did work directly for Worcester.
As the OSHA official wrote in their report, Worcester’s failure to maintain records of illnesses and injuries was not an issue that was new to the COVID pandemic. The official wrote, “This employer was cited in 2017 and 2019 for failing to maintain illness and injury records. In 2019, letters were sent to the employer requesting abatement. After an appropriate time, failure to abate citations were issued for ignoring the request,” and, “This violation was an act of simple indifference. This standard has always been a very-back burner issue for the employer as seen in its prior violations and in the manner it has dealt with the citations with OSHA.”
During a settlement meeting with OSHA over the amount of its penalty, Worcester’s position was: “The Company is still not certain that the COVID-19 fatality is work-related.” Really? Hundreds of mostly-unmasked workers (since Worcester left masking up to their discretion) working in close proximity for 15 hours a day in what is the meat packing plant of Christmas wreath factories, then going back to Worcester’s dormitories, which a state monitor advocate for Maine’s Department of Labor described as “essentially living in a COVID petri dish, in constant contamination through ongoing close contact,” but the COVID death of one of these workers might not have been work-related?”
How could Worcester possibly be to blame? After all, as the company told OSHA, it had magnanimously offered the workers a whopping extra $5 each to encourage them to attend a COVID policy meeting. But, as it also said, it’s policy was to leave masking up to the workers’ discretion.
The Maine Monitor, which obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests the OSHA inspection reports and other documents by filing Freedom of Information Act requests from which most of the above information comes, also reports that “the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division found Worcester owed $55,654.16 in back wages to 95 employees ‘due to failure to pay overtime’ during the 2018 season,” and that, according to OSHA officials, in that same year four contractors that supplied workers to Worcester were also ordered to pay thousands of dollars in back wages to workers.
While there, the OSHA investigator also found Worcester in violation of a separate workplace safety regulation involving an exposed shaft on a conveyor that was putting workers, whose clothing could get caught by the exposed shaft, in danger.
The reality is hardly the image the Worcester Wreath Co. projects on its website with statements like: “Our wreaths are made with care and love by our hardworking Maine family.” But I guess “Our wreaths are made by desperate migrant workers who we can get to slave away and treat like shit” wouldn’t sell many wreaths, would it.
Sexual harassment complaints and retaliation against workers for speaking up
In 2018, as reported by a number of Maine newspapers, allegations of sexual harassment and assault by a crew chief at Worcester Wreath Co. were made by a group of migrant workers. What happened when the workers spoke up? They were fired and immediately evicted from the Worcester Wreath Co.’s housing, kicked out in the middle of nowhere with no transportation and nowhere to go.
As the Maine Beacon reported:
“According to Mano en Mano, the advocacy group that highlighted the workers’ allegations, the Worcester Wreath contractor would stop by the women’s dorm unannounced, text them late at night, offer them alcohol, and repeatedly insist on having sex with a few of the women. The eight accusers include women who say they were victims of this behavior as well as other men and women who are speaking out in solidarity with their coworkers.
“‘[The sexual harassment] started right from the beginning, and was intense with a couple of women,’ said Christina Ocampo, an organizer with Mano en Mano. ‘Things kept escalating and escalating’ until the eight workers decided to confront their crew boss after an incident in November, she explained.
“After the confrontation, Ocampo said a representative from Worcester Wreath came to the workers’ dorm on Nov. 11 and told the group they were fired and needed to leave the premises, where they were all living at the time, leaving the workers without housing or transportation.”
“It’s one thing for Worcester Wreath Company to say they do not condone sexual harassment, but it’s another to stand by their words,” said Rivera Oneill in statement released on Dec. 17 by Mano en Mano. “They want us to work, but are not taking responsibility for when we are being mistreated at their company or by their labor contractors.”
Like everything else, Worcester Wreath Co. took no responsibility, saying that the workers were not Worcester employees and blaming everything on the contractors, issuing a statement that said:
“Worcester Wreath Company has long worked with contractors who provide workers to harvest balsam and make wreaths. Worcester values these workers, many of whom return year after year, but they are not Worcester employees. Worcester works closely with the Department of Labor and uses only licensed-approved contractors. All requirements for housing and safety standards are maintained.”
Yeah, sure, Worcester works closely with the Department of Labor and all requirements for housing and safety are maintained. That’s why the Department of labor fined them for housing violations as recently as 2022 and they’ve had all those OSHA citations.
In 2021, NBC’s NEWS CENTER Maine reported that two of the group of eight workers, both from Puerto Rico, sued the Worcester Wreath Co. for sex discrimination, retaliation, and unlawful eviction over the 2018 incidents, seeking back pay, damages, and compensatory damages, and asking a judge to require civil rights training for Worcester employees. That lawsuit was settled in 2022.
L.L. Bean lawsuit
As already mentioned, Wreaths Across America expanded after the Worcester Wreath Co. lost its decades-old contract with L.L. Bean, which had accounted for 90% of Worcester’s business. L.L. Bean severed its relationship with Worcester in early 2009, following the 2008 Christmas wreath season. A lawsuit followed over how much money L.L. Bean owed to Worcester at the end of the 2008 season for things like inventory that ordinarily would have been carried over to the next year’s production but now wouldn’t be since L.L. Bean had shitcanned Worcester. Worcester claimed that L.L. Bean owed it over $1.4 million. The court determined that L.L. Bean only owed $665,470. But this is not the reason that I bring up the lawsuit. I bring it up because of one of the big reasons that L.L. Bean cut ties with Worcester, which is revealed in the lawsuit — Worcester refused to comply with the “human rights, safety, and other standards” that L.L. Bean requires of its vendors.
From the lawsuit (emphasis added):
“Around the same time as the bailment discussions, L.L. Bean advised Worcester that Worcester was not in compliance with L.L. Bean's ethical standards and advised Worcester that Worcester would have to come into compliance in all respects or risk the loss of L.L. Bean's business.
“In a letter to Worcester dated February 8, 2008, Rol Fessenden of L.L. Bean noted that Worcester had for years ignored L.L. Bean's very clear directives to address L.L. Bean's required human rights, safety, and other standards. He also informed Worcester, that Worcester’s status as a vendor for L.L. Bean was at risk due to this noncompliance, and that there was a zero-tolerance for violations.”
L.L. Bean chose Worcester’s competitor Whitney Originals, the company owned by David Whitney, one of the other Maine wreath makers quoted in The Wall Street Journal article about Wreaths Across America, to be its new wreath supplier starting with the 2009 season.
To prepare for the large volume of new business that Whitney Originals would be getting from L.L. Bean, the company began construction of a new facility in early 2009. But Morrill Worcester, in an apparent attempt to prevent Whitney Originals from being able to fulfill its L.L. Bean contract, sued Whitney in the summer of 2009, claiming that Whitney’s new facility blocked a right of way to a piece of land that he owned, and demanding that Whitney stop construction and remove the partially constructed facility and pay damages for violation of the easement and trespass. The lawsuit delayed the construction, and Whitney had to lease three buildings in addition to its other facilities for the 2009 wreath season, but in December the Bangor Daily News reported “Whitney wins first round of lawsuit,” and, after buying up some land surrounding his new facility, Whitney was able to complete construction in time for the 2010 season.
But Morrill Worcester wasn’t done with Witney yet. With his attempt to stop Whitney’s new facility foiled, he turned around and sued Whitney again in 2010, this time claiming that Whitney’s miniature Christmas trees, made by sticking branches into a foam core, violated the Worcester Wreath Co.’s patent on its miniature Christmas trees, made by sticking branches into a foam core. Seriously!
Worcester’s environmental violation fines
In addition to its OSHA and the Department of Labor, state environmental and forestry officials have also issued citations against Worcester dating back to 2008. As the The Maine Monitor reported:
“Aside from the workplace violations, Worcester and its affiliates have been cited for a handful of state forestry violations involving their property holdings over the past 15 years.
“The largest came in 2008, when Worcester Holdings and a subsidiary agreed to pay $95,000 for violations under a consent decree regarding clear cutting and other forestry violations. There were other forestry violations in 2009, 2018 and 2022, according to state records.”
This reality is a far cry from the Worcesters’ claim of their “careful stewardship” on the Worcester Wreath Co. website, where they boast:
“Our hard work and careful stewardship yield the fullest and most fragrant balsam anywhere:”
Yeah, right.
“Flagpole View Cabins”
Next up are the 54 cabins, office building, take-out restaurant, parking areas, and access roads that Worcester built without permits to form “Flagpole View Cabins.” Worcester was issued a “Notice of Violation” by state environmental regulators for that after they received a complaint in July 2022.
According to The Maine Monitor:
“Aerial imagery found ‘that much of this area has been stripped and graded since at least 2019. There were no erosion and sediment controls in place at the time of the inspection.’”
Just a bit more of the Worcesters’ “careful stewardship!”
And why is this environmentally unfriendly, illegally-built cabin village named “Flagpole View Cabins”? Well, because Morrill Worcester has dreams of constructing the biggest flagpole in the world! (Paging Dr. Freud?)
Worcester’s ginormous flagpole will be taller than the Empire State Building, flying an American flag the size of a football field and a half, complete with elevators inside going up to an observation deck. He needed to build “Flagpole View Cabins” so that people will have a place from which to … well … view his flagpole!
Flagpole of Freedom Park
But wait! There’s more! The preposterously prodigious flagpole that patriotic people can gaze at from their Flagpole View Cabins is just part of a $1 billion theme park that the hubristic Morrill Worcester plans to build called “Flagpole of Freedom Park.” As the Associated Press described it in an article titled “The world’s tallest flagpole. A tiny Maine town. An idea meant to unite people is dividing them” last June:
“Morrill Worcester envisions a village with living history museums telling the country’s story through veterans’ eyes. There would be a 4,000-seat auditorium, restaurants and monument walls with the name of every deceased veteran dating to the Revolution. That’s about 24 million names. Slick presentations showed what amounted to a patriotic theme park, replete with gondolas to ferry visitors around.
“In Columbia Falls, many were stunned by the scale. It would require paving over woods for parking spaces and construction of housing for hundreds, maybe thousands of workers, potentially transforming this oasis into a sprawl of souvenir shops, fast-food restaurants and malls.”
Worcester had planned for Phase 1 of his giant flagpole theme park — the giant flagpole itself — to open on July 4, 2026, the United States Semiquincentennial, but, alas, for now, Mr. Worcester’s flagpole fantasy is on hold, with the town of Columbia Falls voting in March 2023 to impose a 180-day moratorium on large building projects, which was extended for another six months in August.
And, further frustrating his grandiose plans, Worcester has had to return all the donations he got from people who donated money to be “Founders” of his for-profit theme park. As the now-defunct Flagpole of Freedom Park website’s “Park Cancellation Threshold” clause stated, construction would not begin until 25% of the funds were raised, and if that 25% threshold wasn’t reached by March 30, 2023, all donations would be returned. (Click to see website in the Wayback Machine.)
The U.S. Military must stop promoting and supporting Wreaths Across America
Department of Defense regulations are clear: the military is prohibited from endorsing non-federal entities. Wreaths Across America is a non-federal entity. And yet year after year, the military, as well as the VA, heavily endorses, promotes, and participates in what is not only a non-federal entity’s event, which is in itself prohibited, but are endorsing a non-federal entity created by and inextricably entwined with a completely unethical company that has little regard for human rights or federal and state laws. Neither the U.S. Military nor the VA should have any part whatsoever in making money for the utterly unscrupulous Worcester family under the guise of honoring our country’s veterans.