The advisory board of the Salvation Army Pottsville Corps decided this week to raise funds to erect a memorial to the late Capt. Adam W. Hench.
Hench headed the Salvation Army Pottsville Corps from July 2005 until his death June 6. He was 47.
"Shortly after he died, we had a meeting. Everybody was talking about donating towards something in his name and I thought it would be nice to have a memoriam in his name," Schuylkill County Treasurer Jacqueline V. McGovern, who chairs the advisory board, said Thursday.
It will be a bench made of stone that will sit on the lawn in front of the Salvation Army Corps Community Center, 400 Sanderson St., Pottsville, McGovern said.
"It will be made of granite and it will cost around $2,000," McGovern said.
Joelene Skwait, secretary at the community center, thought it was a good idea when contacted Thursday.
"He was a wonderful man and was a great asset to our community when we had him," Skwait said of Hench.
"He was so young and was vital to the organization and was such a good leader that we thought we should do something. It's not going to be huge because he wouldn't want that. He was so frugal himself. But we thought this would be appropriate. And I believe his wife, Captain Tammy, had suggested the bench," McGovern said.
At a meeting Monday, the advisory board decided to do it, McGovern said.
The Rev. Jeff Colarossi, pastor of United Presbyterian Church, Pottsville, is contacting local stone contractors for prices, McGovern said.
There will be an inscription on the bench.
"We haven't decided what it will be yet," McGovern said.
The advisory board is collecting donations for the project. They can be sent to: The Salvation Army, Attn: Hench Memorial, 400 Sanderson St., P.O. Box 107, Pottsville, PA 17901.
The board is hoping to have the bench in place sometime in October.
"We're talking about six to eight weeks," McGovern said.
Hench's wife, Capt. Tammy J. Cramer, and Lt. Staci Ferreira, leader of the Salvation Army Corps, Pottsville, could not be reached for comment Thursday.