A stunning community project in the Municipality of Strathroy-Caradoc is attracting positive feedback in advance of Remembrance Day.
Thousands of knitted and crochet poppies were sewn onto netting and displays were placed at the Municipal Office on Frank Street in Strathroy and at Mount Brydges Cenotaph Park off Adelaide Road.
Strathroy-Caradoc Museum Curator Michelle Wright said plans to create the project started over a year ago.
"We were trying to come up with something that we wanted to do to honour the 100th anniversary of the Strathroy Cenotaph, which is located just outside the museum," Wright said. "We had seen this kind of project done in other communities across Ontario and we thought, 'What a wonderful way to have a community based project for something that was for community members.'"
The poppy design is a trademark of The Royal Canadian Legion (Dominion Command).
So, once copyright permission was granted (with help from the local Legion), instructions were given to anyone wanting to contribute to the project.
"We've had so many great workshops," Wright said. "We put out tutorials, we put out all the patterns for people to create, and then over the course of the year people were making the poppies."
The response, Wright said, was better than they could ever imagine.
"Originally our goal was about 3,000 poppies and we ended up with 10,000 donations," she said.
Volunteers -- who gathered at the Caradoc Community Centre in Mount Brydges to sew each individual flower onto the netting -- were only able to attach 4,000 this year.
"We still have 6,000 poppies! What we would really like to do for next year, is attach more to netting and make the installation bigger and maybe include the Melbourne Cenotaph -- which is also within our municipality. It's having its 65th anniversary next year. So, we thought it would be a good way to tie that in," Wright said.
As a result, more help will be needed to continue the project.
"So, over the course of the winter, we're going to be having more days where we're going to be asking volunteers to come back and help us attach more poppies to the netting," she said. "We're hoping to bring this back for several years to come."
The poppies will be displayed until November 12.
Wright said several free events, at the museum or in the community, are being held leading up to November 11 to educate residents on local war related history.
Details can be found on the museum's Facebook page.
