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 museum that shares the organization’s mission to Remember the nation’s fallen veterans, Honor those who serve, and Teach the next generation about the value of freedom.
Today, WAA announces the MEE plans for 2023. Next year’s national tour will begin in California in January, then heads to Arizona in March, and New Mexico and Southern Colorado in April. Starting in May, it returns to Texas, and then turns to Kentucky and Tennessee in June. It will visit North Carolina, West Virginia, and Virginia in July.
In August, the MEE will make stops in Maryland, Delaware, and Southern New Jersey. In September, it will return to Pennsylvania, New York, and Northern New Jersey. From there, the MEE will make its way up through New England for the next two months visiting all six New England states before heading home to Maine.
To learn more about the Mobile Education Exhibit or submit a request for it to come to your community in 2023, click here.
“The goal of the Wreaths Across America Mobile Education Exhibit is to bring communities together and teach about the organization’s mission,” said Trish Gardner, Manager, 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.”
In January of 2022, the MEE left Maine and began its national tour in Florida and will be finishing this year’s route as a member of the annual “Escort to Arlington.” The weeklong escort – known to some as the world’s longest veterans’ parade – will make stops at schools and memorials down the East Coast carrying Gold Star and Blue Star Families, veterans and patriots sharing the mission and bringing communities together, culminating at Arlington National Cemetery on National Wreaths Across America Day – Saturday, December 17, 2022.
Highlights of the 2022 Mobile Education Exhibit national tour include stops in North Caroling, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Missouri, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Kansas, Tennessee, and its home state of Maine. The 2022 tour was bolstered by many local volunteers and volunteer groups. 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 important, the MEE and WAA Ambassadors transporting the mobile museum and sharing the mission, are proud to have officially welcomed home over 3,300 Vietnam Veterans since it first hit the road in 2019 as part of the organization’s partnership with the United States of America Vietnam War 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 all. 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.
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.
