No Stone Left Alone honours Okanagan veterans

In the lead-up to Remembrance Day, around 300 Vernon, B.C. students are laying poppies on the gravestones of over 1,000 veterans.

No Stone Left Alone has become an annual tradition that both honours those who served and gives the next generation a personal connection to history.

The student groups are led around the cemetery by volunteers who have researched the local veterans.

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The volunteers are able to speak to the students about each soldier individually before a student lays a poppy on the veteran’s grave.

Volunteer Ted Hoyte is related to a few of the veterans honoured at Vernon’s Plesant Valley Cemetery where No Stone Left Alone events took place on Thursday.

Hoyte said he wants students to know those who volunteered to risk their lives all had different stories, “and also maybe we can try not to have wars again, but that’s not likely.”

For the students, visiting the veterans’ graves is different than learning about soldiers’ experiences in books.

“You learn the different ranks and you really learn to appreciate each person,” said Rebecca, a Grade 7 student.

In the North Okanagan, No Stone Left Alone events are also planned this year in Coldstream and Lumby.

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