BATON ROUGE — The Baton Rouge National Cemetery is preparing for its annual tradition of placing wreaths onto veteran headstones each December.

Denise Singleton, the president of the Blue Star Mothers of Louisiana Chapter 1, says her organization needs help from the community to sponsor wreaths and volunteers to honor those who sacrificed their lives for our country.

“A lot of the American heroes that are buried here no longer have living family to remember them, especially at Christmas time,” Singleton said.

She said the cemetery closed its burial site in 2012, and she said it is often overlooked. She said her organization adopted the cemetery 15 years ago and partnered with the national nonprofit organization Wreaths Across America to ensure they are remembered.

She said for the past 15 years she has dreamed of every headstone being covered with a wreath. At the moment, Singleton said they are halfway to their goal.

“There are 5,091 American heroes buried here, and to get sponsors to cover every headstone would be absolutely remarkable,” said Singleton.

Louisiana National Cemetery and Port Hudson National Cemetery both are participating in the wreath ceremony. According to Wreaths Across America's website Louisiana National Cemetery, only about one-third of veteran graves have wreath sponsors.

At Port Hudson, there are 13,247 veteran graves and only 1,312 headstones have wreaths so far.

Singleton said this ceremony is important because it brings the community together for a special moment.

“One of the groups that showed up was our homeless community. They showed up just to help us out. They knew what we were fighting so they felt a sense of belonging, and that’s really what this is all about,” said Singleton.

It costs $17 to sponsor a wreath, and Singleton says there's a deal where you sponsor two wreaths and Wreaths Across America will sponsor a third wreath.

The last day to sponsor a wreath is Nov. 29.

The wreath ceremony at the Baton Rouge National Cemetery is Dec. 14 at 10 a.m.