Riverside hosts early Remembrance Day ceremony at Miracle Park cenotaph

Community members gathered at the cenotaph in Riverside on Saturday afternoon for the annual Remembrance Day service hosted by Royal Canadian Legion Branch 255.

The ceremony, held at Miracle Park, is a longstanding tradition for the Riverside branch, taking place the weekend before the city’s main Remembrance Day service downtown.

Branch 255 president Bill Tribute said the local event continues to draw strong community support each year.

“This is the service that we do for the branch,” Tribute said. “The one downtown is the service for all the other regions and the people of the city of Windsor. So we do this every year just before the Saturday before Remembrance Day.”

Tribute said the brief ceremony went smoothly, with a strong turnout and participation from local groups.

“The band was good. All the people that were supposed to be here to address wreaths, they were here. And, yeah, it went well,” he said.

“I think the message is that we should all live in peace — and that’s basically it,” Tribute added.

Windsor city councillor Jo-Anne Gignac represented the city at the service, along with Windsor-Tecumseh MPP Andrew Dowie and Windsor-Tecumseh-Lakeshore MP Kathy Borrelli.

Gignac said it’s heartening to see the Riverside community continue to turn out in strong numbers year after year.

“Riverside always does it the weekend before the main event downtown,” she said.

“And we have been blessed to have a good turnout forever and a day. It was nice to see even on an overcast day that we had so many people from the community come out.”

She added that Remembrance Day remains a vital opportunity for Canadians to reflect on the freedoms earned through service and sacrifice.

“Remembrance Day should be very, very special for everyone,” Gignac told CTV News.

“We enjoy the benefit of freedoms that most people in the world envy and it’s a result of the people who have stepped up over many, many decades. It’s a small amount of time to come out, close your eyes and say thank you to every man and woman that stepped forward in every incursion, every war and in peacekeeping exercises to make sure we do continue it.”