HELENA — Ahead of the Memorial Day holiday, various community groups, including elementary students, are placing flags in local cemeteries to honor and remember those who served our country.
“When we placed the flags down that commemorated them and made sure the next generation can see what these people did for us," Joey Smith, a fifth-grade student, says.
Fifth graders at Broadwater Elementary joined Daughters of the American Revolution in a scavenger hunt of sorts to find gravestones to place flags at throughout the historic Benton Avenue Cemetery.
Students were given maps, approximate rows, names, and a brief story on the individual's service to the nation.
“It starts to spark some curiosity, well, who is this? What is their story? And the more the kids can see, touch, feel, smell things that relate to history, the more curious they get and the more likely they are to actually take care of these locations," said Jodi Delaney, a Daughters of the American Revolution member and fifth-grade teacher.
All while looking for those to honor, students also learned about the importance of respecting historic spaces through community service in the form of trash pickup.
“Well, they all served our country, and we would not be here without them doing that, and it might be a lot different," Smith says. "We should definitely respect them and take a day to honor them."
For youngsters in Helena, the act of placing flags makes the purpose of Memorial Day clearer.
Delaney says, "To be able to come out with a hands-on activity makes it a lot more real and show it is not just something on the calendar.”
In addition to the Benton Avenue Cemetery, volunteers placed over one hundred flags at around twenty cemeteries in the area.
