In time for Remembrance Day, almost 9,000 students in communities across Canada are placing poppies on veterans’ headstones. The students are taking part in the program, No Stone Left Alone, that began in Edmonton in 2011.
The ultimate goal is to have a student place a poppy on the headstone of every Canadian who has served in the country’s armed forces.
Students from Aldershot School in Burlington, Ontario Left No Stone Alone when they honoured the veterans buried in Woodland Cemetery in Hamilton, Ontario.
No Stone Left Alone was launched by Maureen G. Bianchini-Purvis in recognition of the sacrifice of the Canadian men and women who have lost their lives in the service of peace, at home and abroad. It became her mission to see that one day all of the soldiers’ headstones would have a poppy placed in their honour and the cemetery would resemble the idea of Flanders Fields where the poppies grow “row on row.”
This year, No Stone Left Alone is holding remembrance ceremonies in more than 55 communities.
In British Columbia, about 120 Grade 6 and 7 students, accompanied by Canadian Armed Forces members from CFB Esquimalt, placed about 2,000 poppies on veterans’ gravesites at God’s Acre Veterans Cemetery in Esquimalt.
Students at a Montreal high school made about 17,000 poppies that they placed in the National Field of Honour in nearby Pointe-Claire, making sure no stone was without one.
At Hamilton’s Woodland Cemetery, students from a local school placed poppies on 875 headstones within the cemetery’s Field of Honour.
Students went to Edmonton’s Beechmount cemetery, where the tradition began seven years ago, to place poppies on headstones on Monday.
In Regina, elementary school students placed poppies at the Regina Cemetery.
Last year, more than 8,000 students placed poppies on the headstones of almost 50,000 veterans in 101 cemeteries across Canada.
Visit the No Stone Left Alone Memorial Foundation website to learn more about Canada’s involvement in all 10 battles highlighted at the 2018 ceremony.
There are many media reports and photos to see online about this year’s No Stone Left Alone activities. Google “No Stone Left Alone” or search #NoStoneLeftAlone on Twitter.
Knowing that our ancestors’ service will be remembered and honoured in years comforts many, including genealogists.
