Helping remember veterans at South Dakota cemeteries

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) — A Sioux Falls Life Scout had a big dream for his Eagle Scout Project. However, it was one that needed help from the community.

Cooper Rey wants to help create a database with photos of veterans’ headstones in four cemeteries across Sioux Falls. But to cover all the areas, he needed help from a lot of people.

“When I first started emailing people and launched the signup Genius, it wasn’t doing so great. So seeing this many people has definitely made me more hopeful because we didn’t think that we’d be able to complete it in one day. But it appears that will be possible,” Eagle Scout project, Cooper Rey said.

He says that anywhere from 40-50 people showed up to help, and they were ahead of schedule.

“The volunteers were definitely a very important part to this. Without them, it definitely would not have gone smoothly. We would not be ahead of track without the volunteers. This would take like a really long time,” Rey said.

For veteran Victoria Lique, she was happy to spend her Saturday remembering veterans who’ve passed away.

“They’re not recognized for their service and I feel like, you know, the especially the older vets are kind of forgotten in a sense,” volunteer with the project, Victoria Lique said.

Along with remembering veterans, she says this is also a great project for the family members of those veterans.

“To have something to be able to look up and find out the history of their family and where their relatives might be buried and maybe the stories of heroism behind it that go untold,” Lique said.

As these volunteers spend just a few hours of their weekend, to help remember those who have served our country.

For the second part of the project, Rey will need help entering all the data collected today.

To help with the second part of the project, Rey’s email is 346eagle@gmail.com .

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