Who Is Preston Sharp? Flag And Flowers Challenge Organizer Among SOTU Guests

GettyImages-910249954 — US President Donald Trump listens to a speaker during a working dinner with European business leaders during the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in Davos, eastern Switzerland, on January 25, 2018. NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images

With mere hours until president Donald Trump’s first State of the Union address, one of the topics generating interest ahead of time is the wide-ranging list of the president’s special guests to the SOTU speech. Fifteen people in total will sit with Melania Trump while the president makes arguably the biggest speech of his first term as United States president, according to the White House’s website.

One such guest will be Preston Sharp, a 12-year-old boy who the president wanted to recognize for his reverence for military veterans. Sharp became well known for the Flag and Flower Challenge, which tasked Americans with honoring fallen soldiers by placing flags and red carnations on their graves.

10 year-old Preston Sharp will be an honored guest of the President & First Lady at the #StateOfTheUnion. He has organized the placement of more than 40,000 American flags & flowers on soldiers’ graves, as part of his goal to honor veterans in all 50 states. @OANN pic.twitter.com/fjeXpxtSJv
— Patrick Hussion (@PatrickHussion) January 29, 2018

According to Sharp’s GoFundMe page, he was inspired to do it on Veteran’s Day 2015 when he noticed what he felt was a lack of respect being given to soldiers’ gravesites. He supposedly worked to place flags and flowers on every grave in the cemetery his veteran grandfather now rests, in Redding, California. After that, he branched out to nearby counties and then challenged people all around the United States to do the same.

Sharp is one of 15 special guests to the president and first lady, joining several small business owners, veterans and police officers.