Arizona State Veterans Home unveils Remembrance Tree for fallen veterans
A welded Remembrance Tree now stands at Arizona State Veterans Home-Yuma, built by veterans and their families to honor former residents and fallen service members.
The Remembrance Tree now stands at Arizona State Veterans Home-Yuma, a welded memorial made from veterans’ dog tags and other symbols of service to honor the lives, service and memories of former residents. Built by veterans, sons of veterans and granddaughters of veterans, the piece turns metalwork into a family tribute rooted in military history.
Shanen Aranmor, the owner of Weld Like a Girl, helped lead the project and said everyone who worked on it had some military connection. She pointed to a copper thread rising through the tree and branching into all six branches of the armed forces, a design meant to show shared purpose even when service members come from different backgrounds.
Marine Corps veteran Scott Reynolds said he was proud to help create something that gives people a place to remember veterans who lived at the home. The memorial sits inside Arizona State Veterans Home-Yuma, an 80-bed, Medicare-certified skilled-nursing facility in West Yuma that is run by the Arizona Department of Veterans’ Services. The home includes 60 long-term care beds and a 20-bed memory care unit.
The home opened in 2023 on 10 acres donated by the City of Yuma and was funded in part by an $18.6 million VA State Home Construction Grant and more than $13 million from the Arizona State Legislature. The site now gives residents, staff and visiting family members a visible reminder of the people who lived there and the service that brought them to Yuma.
That matters in Yuma County, where the U.S. Census Bureau estimated 14,510 veterans in the 2020-2024 period. In a county shaped by military ties, the tree adds a permanent marker of remembrance to a facility built for veterans’ care, tying personal memory to a public place where those names and stories can still be seen.
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