48-foot-long mobile veterans museum travels the nation. It will be in Beaufort Monday

A rolling interactive museum that remembers the nation’s fallen veterans, honors those currently serving and educates the next generation about freedom is stopping in Beaufort Monday.

Beaufort is one stop on the national tour of the Wreaths Across America (WAA) Mobile Education Exhibit, Beaufort County Veterans Affairs and WAA accounced Friday.

It’s a 48-foot-long mobile museum that educates visitors about the service of the nation’s veterans and serves as an official “Welcome Home” station for Vietnam veterans.

Wreaths Across America is a not-for-profit that launched an annual wreath-laying ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery in 2007 that’s since expanded to veterans cemeteries across the country, including Beaufort National Cemetery.

Morrill Worcester, owner of the Worcester Wreath Company in Harrington, Maine, donated his first wreath to Arlington in 1992 when as a 12-year-old paperboy he won a trip to the nation’s capital. He launched WAA 15 years later. Through the program, people can purchase wreaths, which are then donated to local cemeteries and placed on headstones to honor veterans.

In 2022, the organization placed more than 2.7 million sponsored veterans’ wreaths at more than 3,700 participating locations nationwide.

It’s a popular program in Beaufort, home to the Beaufort National Cemetery. Each year, WAA in Beaufort, in its 17th year, places wreaths on the headstones of many of the 26,000 veterans buried there. This year’s local ceremony is at noon Dec. 16.

The Mobile Education Exhibit will be in the Beaufort Town Center parking lot at 2015 Boundary Street 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Monday. It is free and open to the public. The exhibit is equipped with a 24-person screening room that showcases the different aspects of the WAA mission through video.

Remembrance wreaths can be sponsored for $17 at www.wreathsacrossamerica.org/GA0175P.