The Town of St Marys is full of banners this fall ahead of Remembrance Day.
Like many local legions, Perth Regiment Veterans Branch 236 has been hanging memorial banners honouring local veterans in advance of November 11.
However, former Legion President Tom Jenkins says it has gotten so popular since its launch in 2020, that they're running out of places to hang them.
"We had 33 new ones this year, and we had a lot of trouble tracking down poles for them all," he said. "So for the first time, we have four placed on the Legion building itself. We may have to increase that next year, because it is getting very difficult to find spots for them."
Over 250 veterans with local ties are honoured with banners, lining Queen Street throughout the town, as well as the Riverview Walkway.
Jenkins says the program has received a ton of support since it was launched locally.
"It's been extremely popular, we've never heard anything but praise for them. The town's got a lot of pride, Perth Regiment was based here and Stratford, so a lot of vets that served within that unit, their relatives are here... lots of other service units as well: Army, Navy and Air Force are all represented here," he said.
In order to help keep track of the location of each banner every year, Niki Sumpter, a volunteer, put together a map of where each banner can be found in town.
The map can be found by clicking here.
"What Tom does, is he puts them in different locations every year, so nobody gets a prime location year-over-year," she said. "So when he moves them around, it's like where did they end up this year? It becomes a bit of an Easter egg hunt, so we created this, and it makes it easier for me, because I will get emails as soon as they go up, 'Where is my veteran?'"
Sumpter, a mechanical engineer, said her map-making experience prior this came from a request from her mother to help their photography group. Now, along with where to find each veteran's banner in town, she's also launched another project in recognition of the Royal Canadian Legion's 100th year.
Sumpter has also been collecting service highlights, stories and other information about each veteran for their online database.
"Richard Holt, he created a book, and it had a bunch of the stories of the servicemen on our cenotaph," she said. "So I expanded on that, and I took all of those stories, I researched them a little deeper and we added that to the website. A lot of the stories linked back to people with banners, so every person who has either their name on the cenotaph, a war plaque or on one of the banners; has their own unique webpage that links to their story."
You can find the full list of veteran stories on the Legion's website.
As for those those looking to contribute a banner for a St. Marys veteran, they just need to fill out an online form and contribute $200.
Jenkins says after that, the family owns the banner, though most opt to let the Legion keep it.
