$2.2M in New VA Grants Allow Students, Educators to Memorialize Veterans

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has awarded eight grants totaling nearly $2.2 million to send K-12 and university students into national and VA-funded cemeteries to research the lives of the veterans buried there, and to publish what they learn.

The money flows through the National Cemetery Administration’s Veterans Legacy Program, part of the VA’s effort to turn the names on government headstones back into stories. The announcement was made July 17.

“These grants connect America’s youth with America’s Veterans,” Sam Brown, the VA undersecretary for memorial affairs, said in a statement. “They help teach young people valuable lessons about service, sacrifice, courage and perseverance that will last a lifetime.”

Each of the eight recipients, selected after what the VA called a rigorous review, will run a program centered on students conducting original research with real veterans and then sharing it publicly. Often, they will share at the graveside itself.

Eight Grants, Ample Opportunities

The following are the eight grant awards, from largest to smallest:

• National History Day, $356,582 – Identifies 50 teachers who live near a VA or VA-funded cemetery and guide their students in researching veterans who served in the Navy or Coast Guard during World War II, with up to 100 biographies added to the Veterans Legacy Memorial.
• U.S. Korea Global Strategy Foundation, $329,997: Students will research local Vietnam War veterans buried in national cemeteries, a project the VA said could reach as many as 21,000 students and 900 teachers.
• University of Alaska Anchorage, $325,000: Teaches students about the state’s veteran population and build a dedicated memorial on its Anchorage campus to display their research.
• Montclair State University, $318,971: Runs a 12-month teacher program built around a three-day field trip to four New Jersey cemeteries, including Beverly National Cemetery and Finn’s Point National Cemetery.
• Texas State University, $286,985: Focuses on Gold Star families and guided cemetery visits, a project expected to reach an estimated 4,000 students a year.
• University of Central Missouri, $255,451: Studies study veterans interred at Fort Scott National Cemetery in Kansas and the Missouri State Veterans Cemetery in Higginsville, including student-run walking tours.
• University of Denver, $201,699: Documents the legacies of Colorado veterans with area K-12 schools and expand its existing veteran-history website.
• Umoⁿhoⁿ Nation Public School, $125,000: Honors veterans who served in the Omaha Tribal community in Nebraska, with lessons scaled from elementary through high school.

What the Students Produce

Those programs differ in shape but come together like a mosaic.

Students will conduct primary-source research into individual veterans, write biographies, and publish them to the Veterans Legacy Memorial, the VA’s online platform. Some projects have added walking tours, campus memorials, digital exhibits or community events.

Credit: Tony Webster, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

What unites them is that the work is meant to be seen. In program after program, the VA’s description ends with students presenting what they learned in a public forum. This way, their research does not abruptly stop.

The VA established the Veterans Legacy Program in 2016 to connect students and citizens with national cemeteries through such research. The program has since awarded dozens of grants, according to the VA, engaging more than 15,000 students.

That scale is the reason the program exists. The Veterans Legacy Memorial includes pages for more than 10 million veterans interred in U.S. and overseas cemeteries.

They were pulled from the VA’s 157 national cemeteries, state, territorial and tribal veterans cemeteries, Arlington National Cemetery, and overseas American Battle Monuments Commission sites.