DES MOINES, Iowa – The Highland Memory Gardens Cemetery in Des Moines is getting ready for its Memorial Day Ceremony on Monday.

The ceremony starts at 8:50 a.m. and will be held by the newly refurbished Tower of Memories.

Four high school students who are part of the JROTC program at Central Academy will be presenting the colors. They were practicing on Monday morning ahead of the event.

Over the weekend, many volunteers were helping add thousands of flags to the cemetery. There are 400 large casket flags that are placed along the street boarders. These flags have a veterans name stenciled on the corner and were draped over their caskets during the traditional burial.

There are also smaller flags at each gravesite where the veterans were laid to rest. There are 3,934 of those alongside a medallion for each veteran buried at the cemetery.

In total, more than 4,000 flags are waving on the 40 acres of the Highland Memory Gardens Cemetery.

“We honor them for their sacrifice, but also just the freedoms that we enjoy every day are because of them. So we as a cemetery are extremely grateful, and each year that I’ve been here, it’s only become more so to me,” said cemetery director, Luke Berry.

The Puppy Dog Foundation will also be there connecting service dogs to veterans or family members.

Berry said this is the first time in two years that the ceremony will be held here because the tower was undergoing renovations.

The $1.1 million project is now complete, but they are still collecting donations. More information can be found here.