An upcoming event will give local students the opportunity to create a project to honor veterans. The First Annual Vietnam War 50th Commemoration Event is being put on by the Christiana Tillson Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. A member of the chapter, Anne Greenwalt, says the event will honor local Vietnam War Veterans.

We're going to have a ceremony to present a certificate to all of the veterans who are present. Someone from the Department of Defense is also coming out to present a certificate to the families of those who were killed in action.

Greenwalt says they invited Montgomery and Macoupin County students to design and enter a project that will serve and honor Vietnam veterans.

We have prize money for anyone who would like to enter a project. It's any kind of service project that honors Vietnam veterans - it can serve any veteran - but Vietnam veterans are the focus, so that's really what we're looking for. After the veterans are presented with their certificates, then we're going to give them a ballot and have them walk through all of the entries and let them vote on their favorite.

The contest is open to students from 4th through 12th grade.

So we're probably going to get quite a variety. It can be any kind of service or outreach project. They can do some kind of research on their family history, they can help veterans make oral histories, they can visit veterans in the hospitals or nursing homes, they can make care packages for Honor Flights, they can do artwork, if they wanted to do a map of the area where one of their family members served - it's really kind of open to anything they can think of, really.

The First Annual Vietnam War 50th Commemoration event will begin at 9am on Saturday, April 23rd, at the First Baptist Church in Litchfield. Entries for the project contest will be accepted through April 15th. For more information, email Anne Greenwalt at agreenwa@slu.edu or call Kendra Wright at (217) 556-6890. You can also go to the Christiana Tillson Chapter website. Anne Greenwalt and Kendra Wright of the Christiana Tillson Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, were guests on the weekend edition of Around Montgomery County program. You can listen to the program here: AMC.Thomack 3/26/16