For the past five years, the Good Sam Club has honored an outstanding member or member couple as our RVer of the Year in recognition of exceptional volunteer service. For 2012, the club’s highest individual honor goes to Good Sam Life member and Flags4Vets founder Fred Moore. Good Sam members elected the Kentucky RVer as the latest award recipient from a field of four admirable nominees in online voting last October.
A Vietnam War–era medical corpsman, Moore has been placing U.S. flags on veterans’ graves with fellow volunteers since shortly after his release from military service. In an effort to extend this reverent tradition to all of the national cemeteries, particularly on Veterans Day and Memorial Day, Moore launched Flags4Vets six years ago. Since then, his nonprofit organization has purchased nearly half a million flags and coordinated efforts to place them in more than 200 cemeteries in 40 states.
Beyond erecting flags on veterans’ graves, Flags4Vets organizes other patriotic demonstrations, including the placement of 25,000 flags to spell out “USA” at Louisville’s Waterfront Park for the past three Memorial Days. Likewise, Flags4Vets has teamed up with the U.S. Army Junior ROTC and the Patriot Guard, raising funds, supporting military funerals and providing flags to greet returning troops.
At last summer’s Louisville Good Sam Rally, where Moore conducted the Salute to Veterans, Good Sam Chairman and CEO Marcus Lemonis made a $10,000 donation to Flags4Vets on behalf of the Good Sam Club. At the Daytona Rally last November, where Moore directed a flag-placing tribute at Riverfront Veterans Memorial Park, Lemonis revealed that Moore had been the top vote-getter in the RVer of the Year election and announced another $10,000 donation to Flags4Vets.
Good Sam members can congratulate Moore in person at the upcoming Camping World/Good Sam Rally, June 13 through 16, at Syracuse, New York’s Empire Expo Center, where he’ll once again direct the Rally’s Salute to Veterans. Members attending the Syracuse event can also sign up to transport bundles of grave flags to cemeteries across the country through Flags4Vets’ FlagsAcrossAmerica program.
Moore and his wife, Lori, live in La Grange, Kentucky, and are the owners of a classic 1961 GM bus conversion nicknamed Liberty, capable of transporting 75,000 grave flags.
Read about all five of Good Sam’s altruistic RVer of the Year recipients, from 2008 to 2012, at goodsamclub.com/rveroftheyear.
Recruiting RVer of the Year Nominees
Do you know an RVing Good Sam member or couple who supports worthy causes or otherwise serves the community in a big way? If so, please take a few moments to nominate them for our 2013 RVer of the Year award. You can even nominate yourself—and in the process promote your charitable cause.
Email nominations to rveroftheyear@goodsamfamily.com and please include a full description and contact information for both you and your nominee.