St. Mary’s County Assistant State’s Attorney Jaymi Sterling with Margaret Jackson

Waldorf, MD – The 26th annual Maryland Memorial Services for Crime Victims and their Families was held Sunday April 19. The south region’s memorial was held at the Waldorf Jaycees Community Center. The south region takes up the counties of Calvert, St. Mary’s, Charles and Prince Georges.

Four annual statewide memorial services of hope and remembrance to honor Maryland’s murdered and missing crime victims will be held this year in Carroll, Charles, Harford, and Wicomico Counties.

The annual Memorial Service unites families and friends of crime victims, victim service professionals, and public officials. The memorial services are sponsored by the Maryland State Board of Victim Services and the State’s Attorney’s Offices in each of the four regions.

To start the program, St Mary’s County State’s Attorney Richard Fritz welcomed everybody to the event, and gave a short speech about what the word victim means in his office. After Fritz’s short speech, the master of ceremonies, St. Mary’s County sheriff Timothy Cameron, introduced the first guest speaker, Margaret Jackson.

Ms. Jackson started her speech with a personal experience. She said “ October 22, 2010. The day my life changed. My son was killed. Now, as time passed, I realized I had two choices. I could wallow in despair over my son or I could honor his life by dedicating mine to be sure no one ever felt as I did. I chose the second. Two months later, I founded the nonprofit organization, RJ Smiles.”

At this point in her speech, she stepped away from the microphone, and wiped away a few tears from her face. The entire audience was silent. When she continued, she talked about what her organization does, and how she helps everybody. She concluded her speech by saying the line, “ We must share our smiles, for we don’t know when we won’t be able to share them again.”

Following the applause that was directed towards Ms. Jackson, the poem “Say Their Names” was read.

The next guest speaker, Christopher Shank is currently the director of the Governor’s Office of Crime Control and Prevention. Shank opened his speech with a statistic. “It is an estimated that for every homicide victim, there is an estimated seven to 10 close relatives that are directly impacted.” He went on to say that “the Governor’s office has high praise for the St Mary’s County State’s Attorney’s Office for their homicide relief center.”  Shank closed by saying “There is an $8 million increase in the budget for the Crime Control and Prevention for the State of Maryland. We are looking forward to stopping crime all together.”

Following the applause for Shank, a reading of the poem “We Remember Them” was recited. After the poem was finished, it was asked that everyone in the room stand and say the name of the person they were at the event to remember. This portion of the program was very moving as the people in the room looked around at each other and saw that regardless of everything, they all share the same thing. They have all lost a loved one.  After this portion, another prayer closed the ceremony.

Contact Max Tayman at news@thebaynet.com