A Message from Our Founders
Sixteen years ago, Randall and I helped create No Stone Left Alone because we believed that remembrance must be passed from one generation to the next. What began as a simple idea, bringing students into cemeteries to stand before the headstones of veterans and say, “You are not forgotten,” has grown into a national movement that has engaged thousands of young people and honoured hundreds of thousands of veterans across Canada.
Establishing the No Stone Left Alone Legacy Program with the Edmonton Community Foundation is our way of helping ensure that this important work continues long after us. It reflects our deep commitment to preserving remembrance, supporting future generations of students, and providing a sustainable foundation so that veterans’ sacrifices are honoured, their stories are remembered, and the values they defended continue to inspire Canadians for years to come.
Maureen Bianchini Purvis, HCol, AOE, MSM, Founder and President
Randall C. Purvis, Vice Chair and Secretary Treasurer
Our Mission
To honour the service and sacrifice of Canada’s military through youth education and the act of remembrance.
About No Stone Left Alone
No Stone Left Alone began with a promise made in 1971. Maureen was twelve years old when her mother, Lillian Mary Bianchini, a Second World War veteran, was dying of cancer. Lillian asked her daughter not to forget her on Armistice Day.
Maureen kept that promise. Every November she went to Beechmount Cemetery in Edmonton and laid a poppy at her mother’s headstone. Over the years she brought her husband, then her daughters, then her grandchildren. It was her daughters, still young, who asked the question that started everything: why don’t the other veterans get poppies like grandma does?
The first ceremony was held at Beechmount in 2011, with two schools, 120 students and roughly 4,000 poppies.
In 2025, 17,479 students from 220 communities honoured 114,825 veterans at 336 ceremonies in six countries. Ceremonies take place through the year and around the world, in every Canadian province and territory and in cemeteries in Poland, the Netherlands, France, Germany, Belgium, Portugal, Scotland and the United States, wherever Canadians are buried.
At each one, students come to a veteran’s headstone, place a poppy, and take a moment to reflect on a life of service. They are not spectators at a ceremony. They are the ones carrying remembrance forward, and they will carry it long after the rest of us.
The No Stone Left Alone Legacy Program
Gifts to the Legacy Program are held and invested by the Edmonton Community Foundation, and the annual income is directed to No Stone Left Alone. The gift itself is never spent, so a contribution made today helps fund ceremonies, educator resources and student experiences every year from now on.
A legacy gift can be made now, or arranged through a will or estate plan. Every amount joins the same fund and does the same work.
There are veterans in cemeteries across this country whose names have not been said aloud in decades. A gift to the Legacy Program helps make sure a student is there to say them.
Donate to this Fund
Fill out the form below to contribute a one-time donation, or set up a recurring monthly donation to the fund listed above.
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