WASHINGTON – To ensure that Maine veterans have a final resting place to honor their service to the nation, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has announced a $4.2 million grant to establish the Southern Maine Veterans Cemetery in Springvale.
“We are proud to partner with the Maine Department of Veterans Affairs to establish this cemetery,” said Dr. James B. Peake, Secretary of Veterans Affairs. “The veterans of southern Maine deserve the honor of a veteran’s burial close to home, and this new state cemetery ensures that honor.”
The 95-acre cemetery will be developed in phases, each designed to provide 10 years of burials. The first phase includes an initial 12-acre development that will provide 3,196 full-casket burial sites and 1,298 in-ground cremation burial sites. The grant will provide 100 percent of the funding for construction of the main entrance, full-casket and cremation burial areas, an assembly area, maintenance building and supporting infrastructure to include roads, utilities, landscaping and irrigation. The grant also includes design costs and equipment to operate the cemetery.
Three other Maine state veterans cemeteries, two located in Augusta and one in Caribou, also received federal assistance through VA state cemetery grants.
VA’s State Cemetery Grants Program complements VA’s 125 national cemeteries across the country. The program helps states establish new veterans cemeteries and expand or improve existing cemeteries. To date, the VA program has helped establish 72 state veterans cemeteries in 38 states and U.S. territories that provided more than 23,000 burials in fiscal year 2007. Since the program began in 1980, VA has awarded 172 grants totaling $344 million.
Information on VA burial benefits can be obtained from national cemetery offices, from the VA Web site on the Internet at www.cem.va.gov or by calling VA regional offices toll-free at 1-800-827-1000.
Information about Maine’s state veterans cemeteries is available by calling the Maine Department of Veterans Affairs at (207) 287-3481 or on the Internet at www.maine.gov/dvem/bvs/cemeteries.htm.
