In Pawtucket, students honor fallen soldiers

PAWTUCKET — Mauria Serio met her future in-laws at the funeral home in 2004 after her boyfriend's brother, Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew K. Serio, 21, was killed in Afghanistan.

By marrying Christopher Serio, Mauria became a member of a Gold Star Family, and then Christopher joined the Marines and was deployed from 2008 to 2010.

While he was gone, she and her mother-in-law, Sharon Serio-Valente, grew close. They attended Gold Star Family events, including the annual assembly at Ponaganset High School where the Wreaths Across America convoy passes through, with some of the trucks stopping at the high school for a town-wide ceremony to honor veterans.

At Ponaganset, it's the culmination of months of learning about America's wars and veterans visiting classrooms to speak. This year, Ponaganset's assembly is on Tuesday.

Attending the assembly together, Serio-Valente told her daughter-in-law, who teaches sixth-grade special education at Goff Middle School in Pawtucket: “You would be the perfect person to do this at your school.”

Serio, 34, decided to do it. “I have an incredible passion for supporting the families” of people serving in the military, she said. Fellow teacher Renee Brannigan, 32, of Cumberland, a seventh-grade special-education teacher, enlisted immediately to help her. “I knew it would be too much for one person," she said.

This year, their third, they worked again to bridge the gap between school and community, one of the goals of the Wreaths Across America organization. They challenged students to raise money for wreaths to be placed on graves at Veterans Memorial Cemetery in Exeter, and the students devised their own fundraising drives, raising $6,500, enough to buy 450 wreaths.

Serio and Brannigan also asked families to make ornaments to honor loved ones who died in service to the country.

On Monday after school, about 20 middle-schoolers and some third-graders from Shaney Andella's class at Potter-Burns Elementary volunteered to decorate five trees in the library.

In a population of 748 students, Serio said, maybe 20% have a family connection to a service member who died.

Kyle Coutu had gone to Goff, they said. Coutu joined the Marines and was killed on Feb. 17, 2010, in Afghanistan. He was 20. Some Goff teachers and staff remember him, and the ornament bearing his name stands out on the tree honoring the fallen from the War on Terror.

Serio-Valente, holding a baby bottle for her grandchild, Sadie-Rose Serio, so her mother could help supervise the decorating, pointed out the tree decorated with hats from all branches of the military.

She won that tree at an auction at the Veterans Home in Bristol, she said, and donated it to the Goff effort. The Lincoln Police Department had donated it to the Bristol auction. The hats were glued on.

Matthew was her middle son, of three boys. She recalled that, growing up, "He was my daredevil." He broke a wrist skateboarding. "He always wanted to be in the Marines," she said, and he wanted to be on the front line. He was.

One tree was loaded with homemade decorations. Some were baubles into which old photos had been placed, some were acrylic frames bearing photos, one looked like a snow globe, some were wood shapes with service members' names painted on. One student had decorated a frame with buttons for his loved one.

Friday is Goff's Wreaths Across America day. The trees will stand in the Goff library through Friday for the breakfast, which starts at 8:45 a.m. The public is invited, especially veterans. In between the breakfast and the ceremony in the auditorium, 200 of the wreaths fresh off the trucks parked outside will be carried in a procession through the halls, with students standing outside their classrooms respectfully as the procession passes. Student projects, such as Christmas cards and care packages for active-duty military, and laundry baskets full of personal items for veterans at the Bristol home, will be displayed in a showcase before deploying.

For more information about Goff's participation in Wreaths Across America, visit www.wreathsacrossamerica.org/ri0041p. dnaylor@ providencejournal.com

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