Father and sons build American flags for veterans and police officers
by Teny SahakianIn 2018, Georgia native Tom Saccenti and his then-8-year-old son Micah decided to make an American Flag from leftover wood, something they had seen done in a YouTube video. After a few failed attempts they finally had an end product they loved and a new hobby to do together.
“My dad and me thought it would be a good idea to do it as a father-son project. We loved it so much that we went to our church and we showed them how to do it for Veterans Day. We made about 20 flags before we got it right,” Micah told Fox News.
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Saccenti, a former police officer, goes around the country with his family teaching new safety techniques to local police departments, universities and churches.
Two years later Micah, 10, is still making flags except now he makes them with his 8-year-old brother, James. The two brothers have continued to make flags for their community even while they traveled with their father to his educational conferences. During each of their father’s trips, the boys give a flag away to one lucky raffle winner.
The flags are given out for free to veterans or officers, but conference attendees have the option to donate to the Boys and Girls Missionary Challenge, a Christian organization focused on educating children about religion in other parts of the world.
Once coronavirus stay-at-home orders were put in place, Saccenti's conferences were put on hold but that did not stop James and Micah from making flags. The boys had the idea to transition to making blue-line flags and delivering them to police officers in nearby police departments.
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“We thought what can we do at our home to kind of still honor people who are working during this time. And so we thought what a great way to honor some of our local heroes, police officers,” said Saccenti.
So far, the Saccenti boys have given away 50 flags and have raised over $2,000 for the Boys and Girls Missionary Group, and they have no plans of stopping anytime soon. Their next step? Saving up for an engraver so they can put the hero's name on the flag before giving it to them.