LEWISTON – About 200 people gathered here Sunday to honor the nation’s fallen heroes as a convoy carrying more than 100,000 wreaths bound for Arlington National Cemetery stopped at Veterans Memorial Park.

“The main reason that this is so important to me and probably every other veteran is because we don’t want the memory of those who paid the ultimate price to be forgotten,” said Paul Bernard, chairman of the L & A Veterans Council, which helped organize the wreath ceremony at the park. “We want our fallen comrades to be remembered and honored.”

Beginning with more than 30 tractor trailers filled with wreaths, and making more than 20 stops along the 750-mile route between Maine and Virginia, supporters are calling this year’s Wreath Escort to Arlington the world’s largest veterans parade.

The effort to honor the 300,000-plus veterans buried at Arlington, and millions more buried nationwide, is part of Wreaths Across America, a nonprofit organization started by a for-profit commercial business from Harrington that aims to remember, honor and teach about the sacrifices of America’s veterans.

The tradition dates back 16 years to 1992, when Worcester Wreath Co. of Harrington donated, decorated and delivered 5,000 wreaths to the graves of soldiers buried in Arlington National Cemetery. In 2005, a Pentagon photographer captured a powerful image of company owner Morrill Worcester and a some volunteers laying green wreaths with bright red bows amid a stark, snowy backdrop of a sea of white headstones.

Since then, the effort has grown to national scale, with the Down East company donating 19,000 wreaths with the rest sponsored by individuals, groups and companies. The Wal-Mart Distribution Center in Lewiston donated a portion of its fleet to help transport the wreaths, and also sponsored enough wreaths to decorate an Arkansas cemetery.

“It just keeps getting bigger and bigger,” Worcester said during Sunday’s ceremony in Lewiston.

The same day volunteers place thousands of wreaths on the sea of stark white headstones, people at more than 350 participating locations – from cemeteries to courthouses – will place 100,000 wreaths in honor of America’s veterans. Worcester said that 98 percent of the 105,000 wreaths from Maine traveling down the Eastern Seaboard to Virginia for the national ceremony on Saturday were made in Lewiston by the nation’s newest citizens. Worcester Wreaths hired 80 local people, mostly Somali immigrants, to make the wreaths.

“I had the privilege of being in Arlington. I had the honor of laying a wreath at the tomb of the unknown soldier,” said Willie Danforth, national commander of the Franco American War Veterans Post 31 in Auburn. “If you can’t step into that cemetery and not have a tear in your eye or feel a shiver in your body, then I don’t think you could ever feel anything.”

The convoy of wreaths is being escorted by the Patriot Guard Riders, a group with a membership of more than 65,000 dedicated to providing escorts for patriotic events. Escorts from the Maine Police Emerald Society joined the convoy from Harrington to the state line.

“It’s our duty and everyone’s duty to honor the 300,000-plus dead in Arlington,” said Nelson Binette, commander of the Harry J. Conway American Legion Post 135 in Sabattus, which provided a 21-gun salute.

Boy Scouts from troop 187 in Turner took part in the local wreath presentation.

Harry Dixon Jr., who was among the thousands of U.S. soldiers who stormed the beaches in Normandy during World War II, summed up Sunday’s event in one statement. As the 85-year-old Lewiston man awaited the convoy’s arrival in the biting cold with his 87-year-old brother, Wallace, another a WWII veteran, the soft spoken Dixon said, “We make it our business to never forget.”