It is not every day that you see nearly 60 elementary school students with a police escort on the streets of Elizabeth in the middle of a school day, but that was the case on Nov. 7 when three classes of second-graders from Running Creek Elementary made the trek across town to visit the Elizabeth War Memorial.

The field trip was organized by second-grade teacher Kerry Jiblits as part of a weeklong social studies class about the military leading up to Veterans Day. In preparation for the visit, students made their own markers to place at the memorial ahead of the Veterans Day celebration the following morning.

Teachers guided their classes around the memorial, explaining the markers and the plaques identifying the five branches of military service, highlighting the importance of the men and women who have protected and died in service to the country.

This was the first year the class made the trip up the hill to the memorial, but Bill Mansell and Diana Robins-Mansell, the organizers and a driving force behind the creation of the memorial, hope it is not the last.

“We hope they come every year,” Diana Robbins-Mansell said. “Our goal when we created the memorial was to educate. I was really excited when Kerry called me.”

The Elizabeth Veterans Memorial was dedicated in June of 2013 and is located at the entrance to the Elizabeth Cemetery.