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Walker Family Funeral Homes & Crematory and the Ottawa County Veterans Service Office will bring local families and their loved ones serving in the U.S. military together for Independence Day via a webcasting service.
The webcasting will be offered Saturday, June 26 from 9 a.m. to noon and Friday, July 2 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. by appointment at the Ottawa County Veterans Service Office, 8444 W. SR 163, Oak Harbor.
“Our funeral home has the ability to offer webcasting in our range of services; our intention is to help bring all family members together at a difficult time,” said Jim Ridener, general manager. “The Messages of Love program seems to all of us here at Walker Family Funeral Homes & Crematory to be a natural extension of that thinking.
“Many people haven’t heard about webcasting,” Ridener said. “A webcast is simply a broadcast of any event – a wedding, memorial service, or in this case, a private communication between family members – distributed over the Internet using streaming technology. A webcast can be viewed live or recorded, and viewed when friends and family wish to – sometimes over and over again.
“The families of soldiers serving in the far-flung corners of the world so deserve this opportunity to connect with their loved one who is so far from home,” he said. “It’s so easy to do now, with our state-of-the-art webcasting tools.”
Those wishing to participate should call the Veteran’s Office for an appointment, during which representatives will get the service member’s e-mail address and schedule a broadcast.
On the appointed day, family members will be escorted to a private gathering area, where they’ll have 15 minutes to send a personal greeting.
“There’s no limit to the number of family members you can bring,” Ridener said. “We urge all who want to participate to come - babies, grandparents, siblings - the more, the merrier.
“As part of the service, we’ll send your loved one an e-mail invitation to view the broadcast at the appointed date and time,” he said. “All they’ll need to do is sit down in front of a computer monitor, click on the unique URL link in the invitation, and they’ll be taken directly to the webcast.
“If they can’t make it to the live broadcast, they’ll be able to view the recorded message whenever they’re able,”
Ridener said.
There is no charge for the Independence Day service. Independence Day Message of Love webcasts will be archived online for one year, and during that year, it can be viewed as many times as desired. “We can even create a DVD of the webcast, to ensure its longevity,” Ridener said.
“This is an amazing opportunity for families to give their son or daughter, brother or sister, a message of hope and support – one that can be viewed whenever they need that extra lift. We couldn’t think of better Independence Day gift to give the families of service personnel in our area.”
Walker Family Funeral Homes are also the exclusive providers in Ottawa and Lucas County of Veterans & Family Memorial Care (veteransfuneralhomes.com) and Veterans Funeral Care (veteransfuneralcare.com). As part of these services, the funeral homes are collection sites for the Cell Phones for Soldiers program, which is a cell phone recycling program that helps troops call home.
Visit www.walkerfuneralhomes.com for more information.
“Those wanting to help are certainly encouraged to drop cell phones off anytime at any of our funeral home locations or you may bring them along for the Independence Day webcast appointments,” Ridener said.
The Ottawa County Veterans Service Office is also an official drop off point for this program and in support of this program, has mailed over 200 cell phones to date.
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