On a chilly day, dozens of Girl Guides – bundled against the cold – are on a mission at Ottawa’s National Military Cemetery.
They walk through the headstones, place a poppy at the base of each grave, pause for a moment, then move to the next one.
Eleven-year-old Jorja Taylor is struck by how young many of the soldiers were. “How they had to go to war and leave everything behind,” she says.
Girl Guide Jorja Taylor, who is participating in the program for the second year, and her friend Eleanor Kaprove place poppies at the graves of Second World War veterans.
Launched in Edmonton in 2011, the program has since expanded to 217 communities in nine countries.
This is the second year Jorja has come to take part in a program by the No Stone Left Alone foundation to encourage young Canadians to honour veterans. It was launched in Edmonton in 2011 and has expanded to 217 communities in nine countries.
Every year before Remembrance Day, participants of the program – schoolchildren, members of the military and the public – place poppies on the graves of Canadian servicemen and servicewomen.
Nick McCarthy, who directs community outreach at Beechwood Cemetery, says the program helps build children's connection to the past.
The largest site they visit is at the National Military Cemetery, part of Ottawa’s historic Beechwood Cemetery, which has more than 8,000 graves dating from the First World War to the present day.
Nick McCarthy, director of marketing, communications and community outreach at Beechwood, thinks the poppy ceremony gives children a personal link to history.
“It allows them to read the name, read where the other person’s from sometimes. It very much builds that direct connection,” he says.
Girl Guide leader Debbie Crane was a civilian member of the military, with four deployments overseas. On this day, Ms. Crane is leading a group of five- and six-year-old Spark Girl Guides as they place poppies along the rows of graves. She says they’re young, but the cemetery has made them curious about history.
“There’s so many questions and they get so many things,” she says. “The kids are so small, but they do remember.”