Wreaths Across America (WAA) is overwhelmed with the outpouring of support from communities throughout the country for its Mobile Education Exhibit (MEE). The MEE is a rolling interactive exhibit that Remembers the nation’s fallen veterans, Honors those who serve, and Teaches the next generation about the value of freedom. In February 2021, the MEE left Maine and began its national tour in Alabama and will be finishing this year’s tour as a member of “the escort to Arlington” the weeklong outreach event which will culminate at Arlington National Cemetery for Wreaths Across America Day on Dec. 18th.
Today, WAA announces the plans for 2022. Next year’s MEE national tour will begin in February and head to South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. In March, it returns to Alabama and visits Mississippi for the first time. In April, Louisiana and Arkansas will be the focus of the tour. In May, the MEE will turn north and visit Ohio, Michigan, and parts of Wisconsin. The exhibit will continue in WI in June, but then travel to Minnesota. From there, it will make its way out West, welcoming home Vietnam Veterans in all new areas of the country including Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Washington, and Oregon. Starting in September 2022, the MEE will begin to make its way back East stopping in Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Missouri before joining next year’s escort to Arlington.
“The goal of the Wreaths Across America Mobile Education Exhibit is to bring communities together and teach about the organization’s mission while remembering the service and sacrifice of our nation’s heroes,” said Don Queeney, Director of Transportation, and the Mobile Education Exhibit, Wreaths Across America. “The exhibit serves as a mobile museum, educating visitors about the service and sacrifice of our nation’s heroes as well as to serve as an official ‘welcome home’ station for our nation’s Vietnam Veterans.”
Highlights of the 2021 Mobile Education Exhibit national tour include stops in Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, California, Utah, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, Florida, Ohio, Tennessee, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, West Virginia, Massachusetts, and its home state of Maine. The tour was bolstered by many local volunteers. A special thanks to the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) whose members supported many of this year’s stops and looks to grow their involvement in the coming year. Most importantly, the MEE and WAA Ambassadors transporting it and sharing the mission are proud to have officially welcomed home over 1,500 Vietnam veterans (1,084 starting July 2020) as part of the organization’s partnership with the United States of America Vietnam War Veterans Commemoration.
When the MEE pulls into your area, all veterans, active-duty military, their families, and the local community members are invited and encouraged to visit, take a tour, and speak with WAA Ambassadors and volunteers. The public tour stops for the MEE are free and open to the public with local COVID-19 safety procedures in place to protect the health of all visitors in accordance with the CDCs recommendation. Members of the media, dignitaries, veterans, and other interested groups are urged to come, ask questions, share stories, and experience this one-of-a-kind exhibit.
Wreaths Across America is the non-profit organization best known for placing wreaths on veteran’s headstones at Arlington National Cemetery. However, in 2020 alone, the organization placed more than 1.7 million sponsored veterans’ wreaths at 2,557 participating locations nationwide. Throughout the calendar year you can tune in to Wreaths Across America Internet Radio, 24/7, to learn more about the mission and those who support it across the country, as well as the hundreds of local charitable efforts nationwide that are funded through wreath sponsorships.
You can sponsor a veteran’s wreath anytime for $15 at www.wreathacrossamerica.org. Each sponsorship goes toward a live, balsam wreath that will be placed on the headstone of an American hero as we endeavor to honor all veterans laid to rest at noon on Saturday, December 18, 2021, as part of National Wreaths across America Day.
To learn more about the Mobile Education Exhibit or submit a request for it to come to your community, click here.
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About Wreaths Across America
Wreaths Across America is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization founded to continue and expand the annual wreath-laying ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery begun by Maine businessman Morrill Worcester in 1992. The organization’s mission – Remember, Honor, Teach – is carried out in part each year by coordinating wreath-laying ceremonies in December at Arlington, as well as thousands of veterans’ cemeteries and other locations in all 50 states and beyond.
For more information or to sponsor a wreath please visit www.wreathsacrossamerica.org.
