President’s Message

April 2024

A warm springtime hello to all and thank you for taking the time to read about the updates for No Stone Left Alone.

I can honestly say that I have never been so proud that we have now reached our 14th year of this great program.

To our donors I say: Thank you for your contributions and for your ongoing trust in us to deliver an exceptional education program to which over 76,103 students have participated since 2011. Your generosity facilitates the simple yet powerful impact of one student, one poppy, one headstone – repeated now 585,000 times over 13 years. We do not take it for granted.

I do want to share my concerns with our NSLA supporters. NSLA is a nonprofit and as you know every donation supports our mission of giving students this important program at no cost to them. When you think about how many have participated you can easily see the urgent need we have to sustain our catastrophic growth. To be able to host our signature events, to fund operations and to develop and increase programming, so that we can hire more professional staff to assist with the workload. I also understand how all nonprofits are down in funding, as we all know many Canadians are struggling to make ends meet. I am just asking you to consider us when your heart feels the need to give. I promise you; your donations are educating so many students, who tell us that this is the only program teaching them about remembrance and the tie to our Canadian history, working together in their communities. Visit our website and see the Ways to Give and I thank you on behalf of the team at NSLA.

Since the early days of NSLA, we have always taken decisive and coordinated action to ensure we are delivering a simple but truly impactful program for our participants and our volunteers. Our program has developed into a solid and rewarding event for all who have participated, attended, or supported us to help us reach them all. We will continue to make education our focus. The need for understanding conflict and history has never been so important as it is now. Our students deserve the best we can do to show them that we care and that we want them to understand more of why we remember and why more importantly we should never forget.

As I mentioned to you in my last message, going back to the beginnings, I want you all to know I am committed to all sites, to know where they stand, what do they need, what do they want to share. Weekly, I have been reviewing each one individually with our National Coordinator to ensure that we retain the ones we have, recognize those who have been with us for years, and see how we can get those who have stepped back for all kinds of reasons back on for 2024. No one understands the specific need in their communities better than the people who live there.

In addition to this, we are in the process of hiring an Alberta Program and Community Development coordinator to help with this process.

In closing, let me say this: Difficult times bring out the best in people. Everywhere we look we see good people doing the right thing. There are countless examples. Let’s all continue to do the right thing, by honouring and recognizing our veterans, past and present with strong and committed Canadians who are exceptional in their volunteerism and support for this mission.

I will conclude these remarks by expressing my deep gratitude for our Canadian Armed Forces, all of whom deserve our profound thanks and appreciation.

And of course, I would like to thank the Board of Directors for their continued support and counsel.

In the coming days, the challenges to continue will test our unity, our endurance and resourcefulness. It is a challenge we must rise to and I am confident that we will.