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Asian Pacific American Heritage Month
Asian Pacific American Heritage Council: www.apaha.org
On May 7, 1990, President George Bush signed a proclamation declaring May to be Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, recognizing the first Japanese immigrants arriving in the United States on May 7, 1843.
Better Hearing and Speech Month
Better Sleep Month
Egg Month (National)
Source: American Egg Board www.aeb.org
Historic Preservation Month (National, US)
Source: www.nationaltrust.org
Huntington's Disease Awareness Month
Mental Health Awareness Month
Military Appreciation Month (National)
Source: www.nmam.org
Neurofibromatosis Awareness Month (World)
www.ctf.org
Older Americans Month
Source: AOA - Administration on Aging Web site: www.aoa.gov/press/oam/oam.asp
Physical Fitness & Sports Month (National, US)
www.fitness.gov/may_month_observances.html
Teacher Appreciation Month
National Teacher Day is always the Tuesday of the first full week of May. Source: National Education Association Web site: www.nea.org/teacherday
Tennis Month (US National)
United States Tennis Association: www.usta.com
Trauma Awareness Month (National)

Top - Page Directory

Weekly Observances - May

First Week of May - Observances:

Astronomy Week - May 5 - 11, 2008
"Astronomy Day occurs sometime between mid April and mid May on a Saturday near or before the 1st quarter Moon. Astronomy Week starts the Monday preceding Astronomy Day and ends the following Sunday. Astronomy Week was created to give sponsoring organizations a longer period of time to host special events." Source: www.astroleague.org/al/astroday/astroday.html
Health Care Administrator's Week
Be Kind to Animals Week
www.americanhumane.org.
Safe Kids Week (National)
National Safe Drinking Water Week
"National Drinking Water Week is a good time to focus attention on safe drinking water and state and federal efforts to conserve and protect water resources." Source: The Water Quality Association: www.wqa.org/sitelogic.cfm?ID=1136
EPA - Safe Water: www.epa.gov/safewater/
Public Service Recognition Week, celebrated the first Monday through Sunday in May since 1985 and honors the men and women who serve America as federal, state and local government employees.
Source: www.excelgov.org and www.opm.gov/psrw
Suicide Awareness Week (National) - Has been moved from May to September in 2004
Source: www.suicidology.org
Teacher Appreciation Week (National, US)
A time for honoring teachers and recognizing the lasting contributions they make to our lives. National Teacher Day is always the Tuesday of the first full week of May, so the actual date varies from year to year. That whole week is designated Teacher Appreciation Week by the National PTA. It's a time to strengthen support and respect for teachers and the teaching profession. The history of Teacher Day goes back to 1944." Source: National Education Association Web site: www.nea.org/teachday
Volunteer Week (US National) April 27 - May 3, 2008
Source: http://volunteer.gov/gov/INDEX.CFM; also www.pointsoflight.org/programs/seasons/nvw/.

Second Week of May - Observances:
Alcohol and Other Drug-Related Birth Defects Awareness Week
Sponsored By: National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence (NCADD)
NCADD Web Site: www.ncadd.org
Gamblers Week
You can send a postcard to your favorite gambler! www2.postcards.org/postcards/cards/0251/
Nurses Week (National, US)
National Nurses Week is always observed May 6th thru May 12th (Florence Nightingale's birthday.) The dates are the same every year. Source: www.nursingworld.org/pressrel/nnw/nnwhist.htm
Nursing Home Week (National, US)
The first annual National Nursing Home Week was in 1967. It always begins on Mother’s Day. Source: www.ahca.org
North American Occupational Safety & Health Week
Coordinated through the American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE), which consists of 30,000 members world-wide dedicated to protecting people, property, and the environment. Information can be found at www.asse.org
Police Week (National)
"May 15 has been National Peace Officers Memorial Day, and the week containing May 15 has been National Police Week, since President John F. Kennedy signed Public Law 87-726 on October 1, 1962." Source: www.nationalcops.org/npw.htm and www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/05/20020510-9.html
Stuttering Awareness Week (National)
"In May 1988, the U.S. Congress passed a Joint Resolution designating the second week of May as National Stuttering Awareness Week." Source: Stuttering Foundation of America Web site: www.stutteringhelp.org

Third Week of May - Observances:

American Craft Beer Week - Third week in May
Source: www.americanbeermonth.com
Emergency Medical Services Week (National, US)
Hospital Week (National)
www.medinfosource.com/resource/healthobserve.html
Safe Boating Week (National, US)
www.safeboatingcampaign.com

Fourth Week of May - Observances:

Pickle Week (International)
First celebrated in 1948, International Pickle Week spans two full weekends and includes the traditional start of the summer season, Memorial Day weekend. Source: www.mtolivepickles.com/News/Event05.html

Other May Observances: (Dates To Be Verified):

Etiquette Week (National, US)
Historic Preservation Week (National, US)
Pet Week (National, US)
Wildflower Week (National, US)

"Mothering Sunday" in the UK and Ireland on the fourth Sunday of Lent. It was originally a time when Catholics were supposed to travel to attend Mass in their "Mother Church" (the regional cathedral) rather than in their local parish. By the Reformation, it had changed into an occasion for children to visit parents. An 1854 source mentions a couplet: "On 'Mothering Sunday,' above all other/Every child should dine with its mother."[1]
"Mother's Day Work Clubs" organized by Anna Jarvis's mother, Ann Maria Reeves Jarvis (1864-1948), to improve sanitation and health in the area. These clubs also assisted both Union and Confederate encampments in controlling a typhoid outbreak, and conducted a "Mothers' Friendship Day" to reconcile families divided by the Civil War.[2]
The "Mother's Day" anti-war observances founded by Julia Ward Howe in 1872[3]

[edit] Howe's "Mother's Day"
Julia Ward Howe is sometimes claimed as the "founder of Mother's Day," implying that Julia Ward Howe's June 2nd occasion and Anna Jarvis' second-Sunday-in-May event are the same thing. It is even suggested that an anti-war and feminist holiday was co-opted by the forces of sentimentality, tradition, and Hallmark Cards.[4] But although Mother's Day was celebrated in eighteen cities in 1873, it did not take root. It continued in Boston for about ten years under Howe's personal financial sponsorship, then died out.[5]

Julia Ward Howe's Mother's Day, celebrated on June 2nd, was first proclaimed around 1870 by Julia Ward Howe's Mother's Day Proclamation, and Howe called for it to be observed each year nationally in 1872. As originally envisioned, Howe's "Mother's Day" was a call for pacifism and disarmament by women. The original Mother's Day Proclamation was as follows [1]:

Arise then...women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts!
Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly:
"We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,
For caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country,
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."
From the voice of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with
Our own. It says: "Disarm! Disarm!
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."
Blood does not wipe our dishonor,
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil
At the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace...
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God -
In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality,
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.
Early "Mother's Day" was mostly marked by women's peace groups. A common early activity was the meeting of groups of mothers whose sons had fought or died on opposite sides of the American Civil War.

The first known observance of Mother's Day in the U.S. occurred in Albion, Michigan, on May 13, 1877 [2], the second Sunday of the month. According to local legend, Albion pioneer, Juliet Calhoun Blakeley, stepped up to complete the sermon of the Rev. Myron Daughterty, who was distraught because an anti-temperance group had forced his son and two other temperance advocates to spend the night in a saloon and become publicly drunk. In the pulpit, Blakeley called on other mothers to join her. Blakeley's two sons, both travelling salesmen, were so moved that they vowed to return each year to pay tribute to her and embarked on a campaign to urge their business contacts to do likewise. At their urging, in the early 1880s, the Methodist Episcopal Church in Albion set aside the second Sunday in May to recognize the special contributions of mothers.

On February 4, 1904, South Bend, Indiana resident Frank E. Hering made the first Public Plea and started his own campaign for a national observance of "Mother's Day" in Indianapolis, Indiana.

[edit] Jarvis's "Mother's Day"
In 1907, Mother's Day was first celebrated in a small, private way by Anna Jarvis in Grafton, West Virginia, to commemorate the anniversary of her mother's death two years earlier on May 9, 1905. Jarvis's mother, named Ann Jarvis, had been active in Mother's Day campaigns for peace and worker's safety and health since end of American Civil War. The younger Jarvis launched a quest to get wider recognition of Mother's Day. The celebration organized by Jarvis on May 10, 1908 involved 407 children with their mothers at the Andrew's Methodist Episcopal Church in Grafton (this church is now the International Mother's Day Shrine). Grafton is, thus, the place recognized as the birthplace of Mother's Day.

The subsequent campaign to recognize Mother's Day was financed by Philadelphia clothing merchant John Wanamaker. As the custom of Mother's Day spread, the emphasis shifted from the pacifism and reform movements to a general appreciation of mothers. The first official recognition of the holiday was by West Virginia in 1910. A proclamation designating the second Sunday in May as Mother's Day was signed by U.S. President Woodrow Wilson on May 14, 1914.

Memorial Day, originally called Decoration Day, is a day of remembrance for those who have died in our nation's service. There are many stories as to its actual beginnings, with over two dozen cities and towns laying claim to being the birthplace of Memorial Day. There is also evidence that organized women's groups in the South were decorating graves before the end of the Civil War: a hymn published in 1867, "Kneel Where Our Loves are Sleeping" by Nella L. Sweet carried the dedication "To The Ladies of the South who are Decorating the Graves of the Confederate Dead" (Source: Duke University's Historic American Sheet Music, 1850-1920). While Waterloo N.Y. was officially declared the birthplace of Memorial Day by President Lyndon Johnson in May 1966, it's difficult to prove conclusively the origins of the day. It is more likely that it had many separate beginnings; each of those towns and every planned or spontaneous gathering of people to honor the war dead in the 1860's tapped into the general human need to honor our dead, each contributed honorably to the growing movement that culminated in Gen Logan giving his official proclamation in 1868. It is not important who was the very first, what is important is that Memorial Day was established. Memorial Day is not about division. It is about reconciliation; it is about coming together to honor those who gave their all.

General John A. Logan
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, [LC-B8172- 6403 DLC (b&w film neg.)]

Memorial Day was officially proclaimed on 5 May 1868 by General John Logan, national commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, in his General Order No. 11, and was first observed on 30 May 1868, when flowers were placed on the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery. The first state to officially recognize the holiday was New York in 1873. By 1890 it was recognized by all of the northern states. The South refused to acknowledge the day, honoring their dead on separate days until after World War I (when the holiday changed from honoring just those who died fighting in the Civil War to honoring Americans who died fighting in any war). It is now celebrated in almost every State on the last Monday in May (passed by Congress with the National Holiday Act of 1971 (P.L. 90 - 363) to ensure a three day weekend for Federal holidays), though several southern states have an additional separate day for honoring the Confederate war dead: January 19 in Texas, April 26 in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and Mississippi; May 10 in South Carolina; and June 3 (Jefferson Davis' birthday) in Louisiana and Tennessee.

In 1915, inspired by the poem "In Flanders Fields," Moina Michael replied with her own poem:

We cherish too, the Poppy red
That grows on fields where valor led,
It seems to signal to the skies
That blood of heroes never dies.

She then conceived of an idea to wear red poppies on Memorial day in honor of those who died serving the nation during war. She was the first to wear one, and sold poppies to her friends and co-workers with the money going to benefit servicemen in need. Later a Madam Guerin from France was visiting the United States and learned of this new custom started by Ms.Michael and when she returned to France, made artificial red poppies to raise money for war orphaned children and widowed women. This tradition spread to other countries. In 1921, the Franco-American Children's League sold poppies nationally to benefit war orphans of France and Belgium. The League disbanded a year later and Madam Guerin approached the VFW for help. Shortly before Memorial Day in 1922 the VFW became the first veterans' organization to nationally sell poppies. Two years later their "Buddy" Poppy program was selling artificial poppies made by disabled veterans. In 1948 the US Post Office honored Ms Michael for her role in founding the National Poppy movement by issuing a red 3 cent postage stamp with her likeness on it.
Traditional observance of Memorial day has diminished over the years. Many Americans nowadays have forgotten the meaning and traditions of Memorial Day. At many cemeteries, the graves of the fallen are increasingly ignored, neglected. Most people no longer remember the proper flag etiquette for the day. While there are towns and cities that still hold Memorial Day parades, many have not held a parade in decades. Some people think the day is for honoring any and all dead, and not just those fallen in service to our country.

There are a few notable exceptions. Since the late 50's on the Thursday before Memorial Day, the 1,200 soldiers of the 3d U.S. Infantry place small American flags at each of the more than 260,000 gravestones at Arlington National Cemetery. They then patrol 24 hours a day during the weekend to ensure that each flag remains standing. In 1951, the Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts of St. Louis began placing flags on the 150,000 graves at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery as an annual Good Turn, a practice that continues to this day. More recently, beginning in 1998, on the Saturday before the observed day for Memorial Day, the Boys Scouts and Girl Scouts place a candle at each of approximately 15,300 grave sites of soldiers buried at Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park on Marye's Heights (the Luminaria Program). And in 2004, Washington D.C. held its first Memorial Day parade in over 60 years.

To help re-educate and remind Americans of the true meaning of Memorial Day, the "National Moment of Remembrance" resolution was passed on Dec 2000 which asks that at 3 p.m. local time, for all Americans "To voluntarily and informally observe in their own way a Moment of remembrance and respect, pausing from whatever they are doing for a moment of silence or listening to 'Taps."

The Moment of Remembrance is a step in the right direction to returning the meaning back to the day. What is needed is a full return to the original day of observance. Set aside one day out of the year for the nation to get together to remember, reflect and honor those who have given their all in service to their country.

But what may be needed to return the solemn, and even sacred, spirit back to Memorial Day is for a return to its traditional day of observance. Many feel that when Congress made the day into a three-day weekend in with the National Holiday Act of 1971, it made it all the easier for people to be distracted from the spirit and meaning of the day. As the VFW stated in its 2002 Memorial Day address: "Changing the date merely to create three-day weekends has undermined the very meaning of the day. No doubt, this has contributed greatly to the general public's nonchalant observance of Memorial Day."

On January 19, 1999 Senator Inouye introduced bill S 189 to the Senate which proposes to restore the traditional day of observance of Memorial Day back to May 30th instead of "the last Monday in May". On April 19, 1999 Representative Gibbons introduced the bill to the House (H.R. 1474). The bills were referred the Committee on the Judiciary and the Committee on Government Reform.

Important Announcement The MSN Groups service will close in February 2009. You can move your group to Multiply, MSN’s partner for online groups. Learn More
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