LONG SAULT, Ontario – The students at Longue Sault Public School have taken remembrance a lot further than just Remembrance Day.
Principal Kieran Kennedy has pledged to make Remembrance Day everyday at his school this year, he told Seaway News.
“I think as a country we owe the greatest debt to the sacrifice these men and women and their families have made in protecting democracy,” he said. “When you do a project like this you can see the kids have a heightened awareness about it. Children are our future and if we instill these values in them now, then they won’t take them for granted in the future.”
A part of this awareness came from learning about the artwork of David Sopha.
A former truck driver, Sopha became an artist after suffering in a terrible traffic accident.
In 2008 he began a project to honour fallen Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan by creating portraits of each one called the Portraits of Honour. Those portraits have toured Canada and copies were given to the students at Longue Sault P.S.
The students got to study the portraits and the fallen soldiers in them. They learned about their families, regiments and service to Canada.