“Nothing is so personal and connecting as a photograph.”

To Candice Buchanan, co-founder of the Rainy Day Boys project, the World War I Memorial Photo Exhibit means more than just gazing at old pictures.

“We have worked really hard for the purpose of knowing these young men as people. Knowing their individual stories,” Buchanan said.

The pictures will be placed on the polls that represent a soldier. To provide a more elaborate description of each soldier, visitors can scan QR codes off of the Memory Medallions, which are permanent displays, that are on each poll. 

“Those Memory Medallions have QR codes that allow anyone visiting to collect their photographs, their life story, their military history, links to their family trees, links to reel-to-reel videos that was down through Waynesburg as they were leaving for the war in 1917,” Buchanan said.

The exhibit invites anyone to learn these stories Sunday, Nov. 10, from 1:30-4 p.m. in honor of Veterans Day. 

“We have photographs of almost all 58 [of the Greene County based soldiers in World War I],” Buchanan said. “We have a few we are still looking for, but we have worked with families, archives, all kinds of different records and depositories, trying to locate all of them.”

Buchanan and Toothman ran a similar event for Veterans Day last year, which was the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I. While there was a ceremony for the anniversary event, this year’s event will focus on interactivity, Buchanan said. 

“[Toothman and I] took a group to France to the battlefield, and so we have a lot of heirlooms. Some of the [fallen 58] soldiers have those. We’ll have those all out on display and we’ll be there to talk about it.”

Apart from the ceremony, the event Sunday will be exact to last year’s event explained Buchanan.

Greene County Historical Society will be supporting the event by opening up their museum doors to show their own exhibit during the memorial exhibit’s hours, said Matthew Cumberledge, executive director of the Greene County Historical Society.

“We are super excited to be a part of it and showcase some of our artifacts that relate to that,” Cumberledge said.

Buchanan hopes this event will be popular enough to justify running it again for next year’s Veterans Day and any future tributes. 

“We definitely hope this will be a location for any kind of military tributes in the future… It definitely has become hallowed ground,” Buchanan said.

For more information about the fallen 58 and videos on past events and ceremonies, Buchanan said to visit raindayboys.com.