National Cemetery Administration
Veterans Legacy Program awards six grants in 2022
August 29, 2022
WASHINGTON — The National Cemetery Administration (NCA) will award six grants of more than $2.1 million dollars as part of the Veterans Legacy Program (VLP).
"NCA is proud to announce our six initial grantees under the new authority awarding grants to continue researching and memorializing Veterans' legacies," said Under Secretary for Memorial Affairs Matt Quinn. "Working with educational institutions and non-profit organizations furthers NCA's mission while preserving the legacies of our nation's heroes."
The following six grantees were selected from a Notice of Funding Availability published in July 2022:
- The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History (GLI), grant of $195,079.
The new project, titled Their Last Full Measure: Americans on the Battlefield, will include the creation of various lesson plans centered around Veterans who served in major military conflicts in American history. The project will also create six professional development sessions available for educators seeking to introduce these lessons in their classrooms. - Loyola Marymount University (LMU), grant of $500,000.
The LMU Digital Veterans Legacy Project will research and document the lives of Veterans interred in Los Angeles National Cemetery. LMU will work closely with local high schools and community and Veteran's groups. The project will focus on identifying and telling the stories of Buffalo Soldiers and Asian American Veterans interred within the cemetery. - San Francisco State University (SFSU), grant of $487,674.
The project will lead undergraduate and graduate students to produce ten short films of Veterans interred in six NCA cemeteries: Fort Logan National Cemetery, Georgia National Cemetery, Fort McPherson National Cemetery, Omaha National Cemetery, Tahoma National Cemetery, and Willamette National Cemetery. These films will tell stories to honor a diverse range of Veterans, enshrining their legacy while highlighting the historical significance of our national cemeteries. - Santa Fe Community College, grant of $500,000.
The New Mexico Veterans Legacy Project will seek to create student-researched digitized biographies of Veterans enshrined at Santa Fe National Cemetery. The project will place a focus on Hispanic and American Indian Veterans within the community. It will also seek to collect art created by Veterans both during and after their military service. - University of Central Florida (UCF), grant of $360,582.
The UCF project aims to connect teachers and students to Veterans interred in St. Augustine and other Florida National Cemeteries. Participants of the project will learn how to construct grade-appropriate assignments focused on Veterans and how to create tours of the local NCA cemeteries. These curricular materials will be made available to the public via a UCF-VLP website. Biographical information discovered about Veterans during the project will also be added to NCA's virtual memorial platform Veterans Legacy Memorial (VLM). - West Virginia Humanities Council, grant of $137,385.
The West Virginia National Cemeteries Project will facilitate the work of approximately 40 Grafton High School students, who will compose biographies of Veterans interred at Grafton and West Virginia National Cemeteries over the next year. Student work will be made permanently available to the public though the West Virginia Humanities Council website, the Veterans Legacy Memorial (VLM), and other repositories.
VLP memorializes Veterans through educational outreach, connecting students, educators, and citizens with NCA cemeteries and the histories of the Veterans interred in them. This marks the first year VLP will use a federal grant mechanism to award funding to educational institutions and non-profit organizations. In prior years, VLP funds were disbursed via contracts between the VA and participating educational organizations.
NCA established VLP in 2016 as a transformational effort to memorialize our Veterans. The program has awarded more than 30 contracts to educational organizations and engaged more than 15,000 students of all levels in Veteran research and commemoration. This newest grant award will add to the continued collection of Veterans biographies, documentaries, lesson plans, and instructional aids.
VA operates 155 national cemeteries and 34 soldiers' lots and monument sites in 44 states and Puerto Rico. More than five million Americans, including Veterans of every war and conflict, are buried in VA cemeteries.
