WASHINGTON – Making sure the East Tennessee State Veterans Cemetery remains a fitting shrine to our nation's veterans, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is targeting nearly $100,000 in grant money for improvements to the Knoxville facility.
"By partnering with state veterans cemeteries, the Department of Veterans Affairs is able to honor our commitment to the men and women who have served in uniform," said Secretary of Veterans Affairs Jim Nicholson.
The $97,000 grant will pay for 100 percent of costs to create a permanent concrete storage shed and associated paving.
Tennessee has three state veterans cemeteries that were built with VA grants. The East Tennessee cemetery opened in 1990, and cemeteries in Nashville and Memphis were built in the early 1990s. All three were built with 50 percent of the cost borne by the state, a formula that has been replaced by 100 percent funding in the VA grants program. VA has previously awarded the state a total of $3.8 million in both construction and improvement grants.
VA's State Cemetery Grants Program complements VA’s national cemeteries. The grants have helped establish, expand or improve 60 state veterans cemeteries that provided more than 19,000 burials in fiscal year 2004. Two additional state cemeteries are under construction. Since the program began in 1980, VA has awarded 139 grants of more than $215 million to 30 states and Guam.
Information about the grants program is available by contacting VA’s State Cemetery Grants Service at (202) 565-6801 or visiting its Web site at http://www.cem.va.gov/grants.htm.
VA operates 120 national cemeteries in 39 states and Puerto Rico, 33 soldiers' lots and monument sites, five of which are located in Tennessee. More than three million Americans, including veterans of every war and conflict — from the Revolutionary War to the current war in Iraq and Afghanistan — are buried in VA’s national cemeteries.
Information about VA burial benefits can be obtained from national cemetery offices, from the VA Web site on the Internet at http://www.cem.va.govor by calling VA regional offices toll-free at 1-800-827-1000.
