A recent afternoon volunteer effort has helped beautify the veterans cemetery plots at Swift Current’s Mount Pleasant Burial Park.
A group of volunteers from the Living Sky Casino spent an afternoon on September 21 supplying the manpower for a much needed clean-up at the site. The volunteer effort was an initiative through the SIGA Days of Sharing held across the province during September.
Royal Canadian Legion Branch #56 President Dave Boucher said the extra helping hands were very much appreciated.
“It’s a great help,” he explained. “Without the numbers that they have we wouldn’t be able to do a good clean-up like we’re going to do today.”
“At the Branch level we are responsible to try and maintain our cemetery, with the help of some families, and not everyone has the finances to be able to do that. So we help where we can.”
The Living Sky Casino donated 13 new wooden crosses, and six were immediately used to replace a number of older crosses which had fallen or over the years have rotted. Casino volunteers also white washed the small cenotaph at the Veterans Section, plus they were repainted some of the older crosses and conducted a general cleanup of leaves and debris at the site.
The site is the burial location for the World War I and World War II veterans from Swift Current and area, so any veteran who has served in the Canadian Armed Forces and who has passed away since is entitled to be buried in the veterans plot.
Damone Caron, Senior Operations Manager at the Living Sky Casino, said their volunteers were pleased to be involved in this project.
“We like to give back to the community as much as we can. We’ve worked with the Legion for the last few years to come out and do basic clean up. This year though we’re going to take it a little step further and do some whitewashing and try to improve the appearance of the cemetery.”
He said they have an enthusiastic volunteer group among their employees, which provides them with lots of support behind their outreach into the community.
The volunteer effort was more special because of the respect they have for Canada’s veterans.
“These people gave up their lives so that we could live the freedoms that we’re living now, and if we can give back to them in some way, we will.”
