When a community comes together to celebrate and honor something truly worthy, it is especially heartwarming and inspiring.

This week, our city stepped up and gratefully accepted its place among other Purple Heart Communities.

To be named a Purple Heart Community, a municipality with living or deceased Purple Heart Recipients must issue an official proclamation and recognize August 7 as National Purple Heart Day. This has been done and the city held a special ceremony honoring this special day.

As a Purple Heart Community, Somerville will be added as a stop on the Purple Heart Trail, a symbolic system of roads, highways, bridges, and other monuments across the country that give tribute to those who have been awarded the Purple Heart medal.

On Monday of this week, Mayor Katjana Ballantyne and the Department of Veterans’ Services invited all to a ceremony on National Purple Heart Day at the Dilboy Post in Somerville.

The Military Order of the Purple Heart Regional Commander formally presented Somerville’s Purple Heart City designation and Somerville Purple Heart Recipients will be recognized and commemorated. The city also illuminated City Hall and Prospect Hill Tower in purple and raised the Purple Heart flag at City Hall and the Dilboy Post.

Somerville joins more than 100 municipalities in Massachusetts and hundreds more nationwide in recognizing those wounded or killed in combat for their country. It is vitally important that we remember to honor those who gave their all defending our country.