On Monday November 7, 2016, twenty-four students from the Guardian Council at St. Gabriel the Archangel Junior Senior High School attended the No Stone Left Alone Memorial Service held at the Garden of Peace Cemetery at Highway #1 and Garden Road. The Guardian Council is made up of one representative from each homeroom in the school through grades 7-12. The students found the experience to be a deeply personal way to remember those that have given us the peace and freedom we so enjoy. The ceremony involved Rocky View County cemetery staff as well as the students and staff of St. Gabriel the Archangel and was a touching, true to life experience for many of the students.
The “No Stone Left Alone” program is designed so that students can attend ceremonies at cemeteries across the country and participate in the ceremony by placing a poppy and a Canadian Flag at each of the gravesites in the Field of Honour. The No Stone Left Alone Memorial Foundation began at one cemetery in Edmonton and has now grown into a national charity. The foundation began their first year by placing 4,000 poppies and this has now grown to over 25, 000 poppies placed at 84 different cemeteries across the country.
When asked, the students found this to be an extremely memorable way to acknowledge the actions of our veterans and to participate in Remembrance Day. The students could also show this sign of respect knowing that when relatives of these fallen heroes arrive on November 11, there will already be a sign at each gravestone that a student has already been there to also remember their loved one.
