Kyabram P-12 College students Chelsea Brown, Chloe Mcleod, Charlie Brennan and Josie Pacitto clean gravestones before Anzac Day.
Photo by
Jemma Jones
The students of Kyabram P-12 College are ensuring every veteran is honoured and remembered this Anzac Day.
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On Thursday, March 13, students braved the scorching sun at the Kyabram Cemetery, and began cleaning each war veteran’s gravestone as part of their project, ‘For What They Have Done, This We Will Do’.
College community connections co-ordinator Janine Kreymborg is leading a team of Vocational Major and Year 10 metalwork students who will clean more than 250 gravestones and place flags beside each veteran’s gravestone.
Mrs Kreymborg explained that the initiative aimed to foster greater student engagement within the community, while educating them about the brave locals who risked their lives for our nation.
Cleaning the gravestones was just stage one of three, with another team creating flag stands, and another team whose members will place flags beside each gravestone before Anzac Day.
“The aim is to have hundreds of these flags visible from the road as cars drive past,” Mrs Kreymborg said.
Robert ‘Lone Pine Bob’ Drysdale, who was instrumental in starting the Lone Pine tradition in Kyabram, was the first to have his gravestone honoured with a flag.
Robert ‘Lone Pine Bob’ Drysdale was the first to be honoured with a flag placed next to his gravestone.
Photo by
Jemma Jones
And, it’s not just the students putting in the hard yards.
The project has received support from local businesses, with Kyabram Steel, which donated the sheets of steel for students to make the flag holders, and Kyabram Paint and Panel, which offered its services and resources to paint the flag holders.
Bunnings Echuca donated supplies for the students to clean the graves of each veteran, and Greenhams and Kyabram Club donated additional money, which has financed the purchase of the flags.
Mrs Kreymborg invites the community to support this project by heading to the cemetery in the week around Anzac Day to view the flags waving in tribute.
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