Volunteers in New Westminster are working to keep a clean account of the lives of those who have long passed — cleaning gravestones at the Fraser View Cemetery as part of the city's Saving Our Stones project.

"Often we think about the people who have passed on...but once a few generations have passed, all that's left is this gravestone," said heritage programmer Michelle Taylor.

Taylor is leading groups of 15 volunteers at cleaning events in the cemetery this August. The next events are on Aug. 16 and 19.

She says there's no particular order when it comes to deciding which headstones to clean. Rather, they want the volunteers to have the opportunity to learn about the heritage of the city's former residents.

"It's really up to the volunteers. We wanted people to be introspective and [think about] what it means to them."

'Amazing response'

New Westminster's heritage community initiative begun last year as an homage to the 75th anniversary of the famous Wait for Me Daddy photograph.

Taylor says the Save our Stones initiative began as way to get residents more involved with city projects.

"We really wanted to do something that's really more of a grassroots initiative where people could come out."

She says the community's reaction to the project has been an overwhelmingly positive one.

"The response has been amazing. We get comments all the time from people in the area who really believe in what we do.

"When we were there the first time, there was a gentleman whose wife had passed away and he had basically gone to visit her grave everyday.

"He said he was just really touched by what we were doing by honouring these people that we have no connection to."

To hear the full interview, click the audio labelled: New Westminster initiative remembers city's past residents with clean up effort.