THUNDER BAY – Grade 5 and 6 students from St. Paul School paid their respects to armed forces members at St. Andrew’s Catholic Cemetery on Thursday.
The class helped to clean the headstones of veterans and community members as part of the No Stone Left Alone project, which includes local schools, the senate of the 18 Thunder Bay Service Battalion, local members of the Canadian Armed Forces, several local cadet corps and the Royal Canadian Legion.
“A lot of the students don’t have the first-hand experiences within their families with veterans that served in wars, so this was a really good opportunity for them to learn about the sacrifices that they made instead of what they are just reading in a book,” teacher Nadine Campbell said.
“It’s really been very enlightening for them. They got into learning about the soldiers and their names and their ages. I think a lot of people thought that people in a cemetery are all really old, but that’s not the case.”
“We have a couple of students in each class that are history buffs and there’s always students that have had members of their family that served in the military,” added Jim Gilbert, who is the vice chair of the senate of the 18 Thunder Bay Service Battalion.
“This really puts things into perspective for them.”
The students cleaned the headstones of veterans who served in the First and Second World Wars and left stones that were decorated with Remembrance Day themes on the graves as a tribute.
This is the third year that the program has involved local schools. In addition to St. Paul, students from Valley Central and Bishop E.Q. Jennings are helping to clean headstones this week.
Campbell said that she got in contact with Gilbert as they looked at ways to get the kids out of the classroom and have a more hands-on learning experience.
“We wanted to do more than just slide shows and colouring,” Campbell added.
“Jim came to talk about his service and then when he told the kids about the opportunity that they had to come here and clean the headstones, they were really excited.”
