MARTINS FERRY — Riverview Cemetery will host a Memorial Day service at 2 p.m. Sunday at the new hilltop veterans’ monument.

Terry Wildman, a city resident and Vietnam War veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps who spearheaded fundraising efforts, said that while the monument was dedicated in November this will provide the chance for some who were not able to attend the official dedication to view a ceremony there.

He said many of the people who donated bricks may come to the event.

“Hopefully they’ll be able to take time and walk around and look at the monument,” he said.

The 6-foot tall granite stone is surrounded by four rows of bricks engraved with the names of around 200 local veterans. The center monument’s four sides honor veterans with engravings of the insignias of the branches of military, Veterans of Foreign Wars, American Legion and the Disabled American Veterans.

Wildman said many showed dedication in raising close to $50,000 to make the monument possible. The bricks cost $100 each, and the benches surrounding it $2,500 each. A fourth bench may be installed in the future.

“There’s people who bought bricks from as far as California and Florida and New York,” he said. Others from North Carolina, Illinois and Indiana donated. “We just had numerous amounts of people.”

Wildman will serve as speaker.

“I’m just going to welcome everyone and thank everybody for those who donated and those who’ve bought bricks. I want to thank the veterans most of all, the ones who have fought for our country to give us what we have today,” he said. “This will be our first Memorial Day that we’ll have a service up there. I’m thrilled with the fact that we’ll be able to let the public come up to thank the men and women who fought and died for this country. We have a lot of veterans in that cemetery, all the way back to the Civil War.

“We raised all the money for it, and we have a beautiful monument up there that we’re honored to show the people. We have a lot of people who have bought bricks, and we have nice walkways and benches that were donated to it and which made it turn out to be very beautiful, and we’re happy that the people can come up this time,” Wildman said.

He said the American Legion plans to hold future events on Veterans Day and Memorial Day in the years to come.

“Hopefully we can have something up there,” he said, noting the importance of paying respects and recognizing service and sacrifice. “We have to keep this up. We have to start this to honor those veterans.”