A student at the Steinbach Regional Secondary School traveled to Europe over the summer to learn about WWI and WWII and shared her experiences with her peers in the lead-up to Remembrance Day.

Cassidy Choquette was one of only 14 Canadian students to win the Beaverbrook Vimy Prize, a two week trip to England, Belgium, and France which is fully funded by the Vimy Foundation of Canada. She says visiting the sites really changed her perspective.

Cassidy Choquette at the Vimy Ridge Memorial"The cemeteries is what hit me the most because you can read a number in a textbook but when you go to a cemetery and you see the headstones just lined up and you picture each headstone as a person with a story and a family then it starts to become a lot more real and it was like that with every single site."

Choquette says many of her friends were far more interested in her trip then she expected simply because it was a first-hand experience rather than something out of a textbook. She notes she had an opportunity to share some of her experiences at the SRSS Remembrance Day service on Friday but also did a longer presentation as well.

"I got to do an hour-long presentation in the theatre for any classes to come or people who were on spare to come learn a little bit more about why I think history is important and remembrance and it was a great opportunity to tell my story with the Beaverbrook Program and also why it is so important. It was good to have a whole hour to talk to 200 people about it."

Choquette says the Beaverbrook Vimy Prize gave her an opportunity to remember why we remember on November 11th. She says she is happy to help others see a new perspective and honour those who have served their country.