No Stone Left Alone

Some students from Bastion Elementary and Highland Park will be joining with other students from across the country to mark Remembrance Day in a special way this year.

Students will be taking part in the No Stone Left Alone campaign, which is dedicated to honouring and remembering Canada’s veterans. The program provides students and youth with an authentic experience that creates knowledge, understanding and appreciation of those who serve and of the sacrifice of Canada’s fallen. In 2022 a total of 9,778 students from 168 Canadian communities honoured 79,896 veterans in 226 events.

No Stone Left Alone was officially launched in 2011 to help ensure an enduring national respect and gratitude for the sacrifice of the Canadian men and women who have lost their lives in the service of peace, at home and abroad. It has become founder Maureen Bianchini Purvis’, whose mother was a WWII veteran, mission to see that one day all of the soldiers’ headstones would have a poppy placed in their honour, with truly No Stone Left Alone.

Bastion Principal Heather Gobbett commented she is excited to have students take part in the program. “I’m pretty passionate about Remembrance Day. My grandfather was a navigator in WWII flying missions over England in big bombers, and both my parents were in the air force.” She says at Bastion a Remembrance Day Assembly will be held on the morning of Nov. 9 and then students who are part of the No Stone Left Alone project will head to the Salmon Arm Cemetery on Foothill Road after the assembly.

Highland Park Principal Rob Ellis comments two classes at Highland Park will be taking part in the program. “Spencer Ward and Jenny Daughtry’s classes are taking part. Their trip to the Armstrong-Spallumcheen Cemetery will be on November 8th, and the school-wide Remembrance Day Assembly will take place on November 9th.”