It's time to share some news from St. Luke's Cemetery. A number of events and ceremonies will take place to mark Remembrance Day and this time of remembrance of veterans.

As well, a long-planned project to repair one of the rock walls in the cemetery will happen this month. 

You are invited to watch the livestream combined All Saints’ Day Service and a Service of Remembrance from the comfort of your own home. The service will be livestreamed starting at 10 am at this link, as well as recorded to view later at your convenience. 

The service will start in the church and then we will move outside to honour the veterans in the cemetery as we take part in a Service of Remembrance. The names of the 150 veterans in the cemetery will be read during the Service of Remembrance. Trumpeter Ben Parker will join us for this service.

If you wish to attend the service in person, please register by contacting the parish office by 11 am on Friday by phone (250-477-6741) or e-mail (admin@stlukecedarhill.ca) to reserve your space. We are continuing to observe COVID physical distancing protocols so the space in the church is more limited than our usual capacity. Please see more information here.

Cedar Hill Middle School will visit St. Luke's Cemetery for two back-to-back remembrance ceremonies on Thursday,  November 4th, 2021: 12:45 to 13:30 pm and 13:45 to 14:30 pm. This will be the first No Stone Left Alone ceremony at Cedar Hill Middle School and at St. Luke’s Cemetery.

The school principal is arranging for media coverage of the ceremonies. I will send out links after the event if there is media coverage that I can share.

For learn more about the No Stone Left Alone program, visit the No Stone Left Alone website.

Several of the rock walls in the cemetery have become safety hazards. We applied for a Heritage Grant from the BC Heritage Legacy Fund but did not receive funding. We were told that the total requested amount was four times the amount of available funds and that numerous eligible and deserving applications were not funded. So we have had to access some funds from our Cemetery Consolidated Trust Fund (our Perpetual Care Fund held by the Diocese), to help pay for these repairs.

We are pleased that the work on these walls will start on November 15th. We anticipate that the cost will be around $10,000. We would welcome donations towards these repairs and to the ongoing maintenance of the cemetery. 

Thank you so much to everyone who came out for the cemetery cleanup on Saturday, October 30th. The weather was perfect for a fall cleanup! Fifteen people dropped by throughout the morning and we accomplished a lot!

The parking lot was cleared of the sequoia needles, the pathways were blown and swept of leaves and acorns, and the cemetery was generally tidied up! Several truckloads of leaves and other garden refuse were hauled away.

Well done, all! Many hands made the jobs go quickly!

This e-mail list was compiled from contact information St. Luke’s Cemetery Committee has regarding descendants, family members, and friends of people buried in St. Luke’s Cemetery. While we know that many of you don't live in the Greater Victoria area, please feel free to pass along this e-mail to relatives who live in the area.

The e-mail list is used to send out newsletters and information about special events regarding the cemetery several times a year. If you do not wish to be on this list to receive these occasional updates, please reply to this e-mail and let me know and I will take you off the list.

We also encourage you to visit the Cemetery pages of St. Luke's website. Click on the Read More button below. The Cemetery section at the website includes links to a database of veterans buried in St. Luke's Cemetery, stories of the people resting in the cemetery, and a database with names and plot locations. 

Regards
Barb Prescott
on behalf of the Cemetery Committee
of St. Luke Cedar Hill Anglican Church