GETTYSBURG — Gettysburg National Cemetery will be a sea of red, white and blue this July 4.

A non-profit group plans to mark the holiday by placing bouquets of flowers at thousands of graves at the historic veterans cemetery.

Beginning at 7:30 .a.m., representatives of Flowers for Heroes will hand out red, white and blue bouquets to visitors to place in front of the headstones. Volunteers including the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts will assist the group's effort to mark 5,000 graves with flowers.

Flowers for Heroes sells the bouquets online, donating the proceeds to groups that support families of service members killed in the line of duty.

More than 3,500 Union soldiers are buried at Gettysburg, also known as Soldiers' National Cemetery. Veterans from later conflicts are also buried there.