P.E.I. students honour veterans with gravesite poppies

Students from two Island schools laid poppies on veterans' headstones at People's Cemetery on Kensington Road in Charlottetown Monday morning.

The ceremony was part of the Canada-wide No Stone Left Alone initiativeto honour and recognize the sacrifices Canadians made while serving their country. More than 200 cemeteries are taking part.

They helped us be in a free country. Janie Reardon, student

"It's a great way to get them involved, to actually have them with hands-on experience," said Maj. Rev. Tom Hamilton, who is chaplain to the P.E.I. Regiment, a reserve regiment based in Charlottetown.

"We of course have thousands of graves overseas of actual Canadian fallen, but veterans who returned are often overlooked," Hamilton said.

Hamilton told students from Eliot River Elementary School and cole Franois-Buote about the lives of some of P.E.I.'s veterans including storied war nurse Georgina Fane Pope.

Then, the students had to locate which graves among the hundreds belonged to veterans, by looking for a particular style of headstone or a rank inscribed on a stone.

Guided by present-day veterans, the students were instructed to pin the poppies in the earth at the base of the headstones, say the soldier's rank and name aloud, then bow their heads for a moment and think about the veteran.

"I think it makes it mean something to them to know there's people in their community that served in peace and in war and some gave their lives," said Chief Warrant OfficerBill Crabb, the regimental Sergeant Major for the P.E.I. Regiment.

'It's really important'

"Some of these kids have never been in a cemetery before, much less really dealt with veteran's stuff."

The message seemed to be received by the students.

"It's really important to remember them and how they served us," said Peyton Peters, a Grade 4 student at Eliot River School.

"They helped us be in a free country," added nine-year-old Janie Reardon, also from Eliot River.

The educational program began about a decade ago in Edmonton.

There will be another similar event in Summerside Wednesday.

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With files from Brian Higgins