Students dressed in red, white, and blue, and community members came out to cheer on a coast-to-coast relay event that traveled through Stuart Wednesday.

The fifth annual Old Glory Relay is a 4,300 mile journey which brings one American flag from Boston, Massachusetts on September 11th to San Diego, California on Veterans Day. This event involves 10,000 sets of hands including those of veterans, civilians, and law enforcement, and is organized by Team RWB, a non-profit organization that seeks to enrich the lives of veterans by connecting them to their community through physical and social activity.

Runner and National Community and Content Manager for Team RWB Shaun Provost says the three core components of this fundraiser is health, people, and purpose, “For the Old Glory Relay we try to combine all three of those aspects. (At) the beginning and end of every day we have a social. During the middle of the day everybody’s stacked into a van, tagging out, raising Old Glory, and then at some points along the way we do have volunteer events as well for veterans and civilians to partake in.”

For the 37th day of the journey the relay began at the state capitol in Des Moines and journeyed west on White Pole Road to Anita. Iowan Darwin Hook shares what it meant to be co-captain for the day, “So for me it involved a lot of the hands on, day-to-day (work). Talking to the schools, talking to the local people to see what it would take to get things organized, engaging the American Legions and the VFW’s, just reaching out to the community to see who wanted to be a part.”

West Central Valley High School students greeted the Old Glory Relay with banners and flags, and even ran with the team to Stuart Elementary. The team was escorted by the Stuart Fire Department and the Stuart Chamber of Commerce provided sack lunches for the visitors. Click here to track Team RWB’s cross country journey.