The Iowa Veterans Cemetery near Van Meter is getting a grant from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs for an expansion project.
Iowa Cemetery Bureau Chief Gavin Sandvig says the grant will let them build another columbarium wall to holds urns containing the ashes of veterans. The already have walls that have a niche where the urns go as one of the burial options.
“We’re about to be on our last wall. And by the end of ’27, we will be completely full within the columbarium wall,” he says.
Veterans can also have the urn with their ashes buried in the ground, or they can choose a traditional burial in a casket in a grave. Sandvig says the Veterans Cemetery is following a national trend where more people are being cremated. “It’s probably 15 to one cremation versus casket as far as the services that we conduct out at the cemetery,” Sandvig says.
Sandvig says there’s one reason more veterans and others are choosing cremation. “You know, I think really the big reason is cost. It’s cheaper to be cremated than it is for the casketed burials because you’re not paying for a casket and all that stuff,” he says. Any service member who served on active duty more than 90 days is eligible to be buried in the Iowa Veterans Cemetery. Anyone who served in the reserves for 20 years with an honorable discharge is also eligible.
Sandvig says they’ve been seeing more veterans choosing this cemetery as their final resting place. “This past fiscal year, FY 2026, we conducted 737 interments at the Veterans Cemetery. That’s the most we’ve ever done since 2008 when we opened up,” he says.
Sandvig says they need to get all the materials and then can build the new wall. “We’re hoping to start next spring and that will go through probably, a good nine to 10 months worth of work. So probably won’t be done until probably mid 2028 time frame,” he says. The grant is more than $1.3 million.
The new wall will have more than 2,100 niches for the urns. The cemetery serves more than 60,000 Veterans and their eligible family members in the region. You can learn more about the cemetery and who can be buried there on their website.