Memorial Day Lantern Numbers Are In
Last week, I reported that those who organized the Memorial Day tradition of floating lanterns out to sea went to great lengths to ensure that the lanterns don’t get far and don’t have a chance to contribute to the epidemic of .
Today, a spokeswoman for the organizers got back to me with the final tally:
- Of 900 wooden lanterns, all 900 are present and accounted for.
- Of 95 “surf” lanterns, all 95 are present and accounted for.
- Of 1,358 “sponge” lanterns — the ones that are distributed to the public — all but three are present and accounted for.
Together, that means that 2,350 of 2,353 lanterns were recovered by organizers, Sonja Swenson, a public relations specialist for the firm Stryker, Weiner and Yokota, told me after speaking with the Buddhist church.
That’s a pretty good recovery rate to begin with, and it’s possible that even the three missing lanterns didn’t escape out to sea. Swenson said people are sometimes known to hold onto the lanterns as a souvenir rather than floating them as part of the ceremony, although nobody can be sure if that’s the case.
If you know someone who took their lantern home, speak up in the conversation or let me know via twitter at .
Volunteers are still in the process of cleaning and disassembling the recovered lanterns for storage and use in future years. They could finish by this weekend.
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