The annual Wreaths Across America ceremony will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday, Dec. 17, at the Korean War Memorial in Plover.

The National Wreaths Across America Day, held in December each year, pays tribute to veterans who never made it home for the holidays and honors current military personnel who will be serving overseas during the holidays.

The ceremony will be hosted by the Stevens Point Squadron of the Civil Air Patrol. The ceremony will commence with a one minute of silence at 11 a.m., coinciding with wreath-laying ceremonies at Arlington National Cemetery, as well as more than 1,100 additional locations in all 50 U.S. states, at sea and abroad.

Wreaths will be placed at the memorial in honor of each branch of the U.S. military: Army, Marines, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard and Merchant Marine. There will also be wreaths laid in honor of and POW/MIA.

Following the ceremony, the wreaths will be moved by members of the Daughters of the American Revolution to graves of veterans in local cemeteries. During the ceremony, the names of those veterans receiving the wreaths will be read aloud.

“We are not here to decorate graves, we’re here to remember not their deaths, but their lives,” said Karen Worcester, executive director of Wreaths Across America.

Also participating in the memorial ceremony will be Veterans of Foreign Wars Greater Plover Area Memorial Post 10262, Plover administrator Dan Mahoney, Rep. Katrina Shankland and Sen. Julie Lassa.

The event is free and open to the public.

Wreaths Across America is a nonprofit organization founded to continue and expand the annual wreath laying ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery, which was begun by Maine businessman, Morrill Worcester, in 1992.

For more information about Wreaths Across America, visit www.wreathsacrossamerica.org.