I was at our neighborhood Halloween Carnival this afternoon and met a Boy Scout Troop (#594) that has a very interesting fund raiser. For $40/year, they will display a 4 ft x 6 ft American flag in your yard on Presidents’ Day, Memorial Day, Flag Day, Independence Day, and Veterans’ Day. They will put up the flag early in the morning and take it down at night on those holidays.

They not only operate in Spring Lakes, but several surrounding neighborhoods. They said their area is roughly the Spring High School area. If you are interested, here is their contact information:

Assistant Scoutmaster Phil Cherry
713.677.1814
SpringTroop594@gmail.com

I signed us up! Looks like a great fundraiser.

"Spring U.S Flag Holiday Service" was originally posted as a blog post at Register Real Estate Advisors on October 24, 2009.

Register Real Estate Advisors was named "Best Real Estate Blog in Texas by the Mays Business School Real Estate Research Center at Texas A&M University.

© 2008-2009 | Register Real Estate Advisors

I hope you and your family are enjoying the long Labor Day weekend.  Here is a little history of the holiday that I pulled from History.com.  Sometime we get so busy on our days off that we forget about the meaning behind the holiday.  Enjoy! 

As the Industrial Revolution took hold of the nation, the average American in the late 1800s worked 12-hour days, seven days a week in order to make a basic living. Children were also working, as they provided cheap labor to employers and laws against child labor were not strongly enforced.

With the long hours and terrible working conditions, American unions became more prominent and voiced their demands for a better way of life. On Tuesday September 5, 1882, 10,000 workers marched from city hall to Union Square in New York City, holding the first-ever Labor Day parade. Participants took an upaid day-off to honor the workers of America, as well as vocalize issues they had with employers. As years passed, more states began to hold these parades, but Congress would not legalize the holiday until 12 years later.

On May 11, 1894, workers of the Pullman Palace Car Company in Chicago struck to protest wage cuts and the firing of union representatives. They sought support from their union led by Eugene V. Debs and on June 26 the American Railroad Union called a boycott of all Pullman railway cars. Within days, 50,000 rail workers complied and railroad traffic out of Chicago came to a halt. On July 4, President Grover Cleveland dispatched troops to Chicago. Much rioting and bloodshed ensued, but the government’s actions broke the strike and the boycott soon collapsed. Debs and three other union officials were jailed for disobeying the injunction. The strike brought worker’s rights to the public eye and Congress declared, in 1894, that the first Monday in September would be the holiday for workers, known as Labor Day.

The founder of Labor Day remains unclear, but some credit either Peter McGuire, co-founder of the American Federation of Labor, or Matthew Maguire, a secretary of the Central Labor Union, for proposing the holiday.

Although Labor Day is meant as a celebration of the labor movement and its achievements, it has come to be celebrated as the last, long summer weekend before Autumn.

"Labor Day" was originally posted as a blog post at Register Real Estate Advisors on September 6, 2009.

Register Real Estate Advisors was named "Best Real Estate Blog in Texas by the Mays Business School Real Estate Research Center at Texas A&M University.

© 2008-2009 | Register Real Estate Advisors