Glebe Collegiate students honour soldiers with 'Walking Them Home' project

With Remembrance Day approaching, Glebe Collegiate students are finding a new approach to honour soldiers who attended their school decades ago.

"These soldiers walked in our hallways and sat in our classrooms," says Glebe student Jasmine Hardacre. "They were incredibly young. John McIntyre was only 18."

The project is called "Walking Them Home." Students learn about the history of individual soldiers who went to Glebe Collegiate and place signs in front of their former homes.

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"If you scan the QR code (on the sign), it will lead to the website that our class made," says student Katherine Moncur-Beer. "And it just gives you the biographies of all the other soldiers who are a part of it, and their lives and what they did."

The website dives deeper into the lives of the former students and teachers who enlisted, bringing history home right to the neighbourhood.

"Walking Them Home aims to give our students a bit of perspective and context about the war," says Jessica McIntyre, Glebe Collegiate Head of Social Sciences and history teacher. "And so whenever they're in a posture of remembrance, they can use tangible memories of somebody that they studied, someone who's the same age as them, somebody who paid the ultimate price of their life."

"We're going to remember him every November 11th," says student Noa Bissonnette, "because I will most likely pass by this house every day when I go to Glebe, and I'm gonna remember he lived there."

The students learned what the soldiers were like back then. What they were like as people.

"He was a gym teacher. And he played a lot of sports," says Kaamil Furtado. "He liked fishing."

"He enlisted the same month he graduated, at 18," says Hardacre.

"He built model planes before he was actually a pilot," says Riley Taylor. "So that was super interesting."

And this isn’t just for the students. Residents in the area are supportive of this initiative, understanding the significance of preserving the memory of those who lived in their community.

"I think that it gives them this anchoring memory about who lived in this community before them." Says McIntyre.

"We tried to keep it manageable with 36 soldiers," says Gavin McOnie, Glebe Collegiate social sciences and history teacher. "And in future years we'll be able to expand with all of the soldiers we have access to and have signs all over the Glebe."

For these grade 10 students, this will definitely be a November 11th they remember.

"I think it's just such a great way to connect more with November 11th if you don't have any veterans in your family," said Bissonnette.