As Nov. 11 approaches each year, poppies are seen throughout Manitoba as a symbol of remembrance for soldiers who made the ultimate sacrifice.
A group of volunteers in the town of Minnedosa, however, has gone big with their poppy campaign. Really big.
A 14-metre-long blanket of poppies — a labour of love for dozens of knitters, crocheters and other volunteers in the Minnedosa area — has been wrapped around the community’s cenotaph, earning praise from veterans across the country.
Lorna Hislop, who co-ordinated the year-long project, told 680 CJOB she first became interested in supporting veterans from working at her local legion at a young age. The idea for the poppy blanket came from a social media post she saw of a similar project in England.
“It started many, many years ago. I had seen a posting from a group of individuals in England that did the same thing. The group had gotten together and made all these poppies, and they were commemorating one of the wars over there,” Hislop said.
“When they finished their poppy blanket, they hung it from a turret of a castle. That image of the red flowing from a turret of a castle is something that stuck with me and has always stayed with me.
“In December of last year I was on the committee for Manitoba 150th here in Minnedosa, and we were trying to come up with ideas of what we could do to kind of make this year special… and I thought, maybe this would be the year to do it.”
Hislop said she approached a crochet group at the local United church with the idea, and the ball started rolling.
“They fully supported me, asked me for the patterns, and then we just started,” she said.
“Then I threw it out to the community and opened it up. My goal was for 5,000 poppies either crocheted or knitted. I got very close, I got up to 4,600. In October, we got together for three days and put it all together.”
The finished product — 91 centimetres wide and 14 metres long, attached to chicken wire — took dozens of volunteers to complete, and since a castle turret wasn’t available in southern Manitoba, they found the next best thing.
“My vision was to have it hung much like the image I saw way back when from the castle. When I couldn’t get the logistics figured out for hanging it, I thought, ‘Well, let’s just wrap it around the cenotaph,’ and it’s the best thing that could have happened.”
Hislop said she’s seen images of the project shared on social media by veterans from across the country and even some from around the world.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the way Canadians purchase poppies in November has changed.
The Royal Canadian Legion has gone high-tech in an attempt to continue its annual poppy campaign in a world where volunteers pinning the imitation flowers on donors isn’t feasible.
Instead, the legion — in collaboration with HSBC Bank — has begun introducing Pay Tribute Poppy Boxes in locations across the country.
The new tech — a cashless donation box — allows people to give to the legion in exchange for a poppy by tapping their debit or credit card, smartphone or smartwatch, for an automatic $2 donation.
The legion said the idea came about before the pandemic, because of the increasing move toward a cashless society, but when COVID-19 hit, it was a perfect time to roll the boxes out.
“I look at my own daughter, mid-20s, she never had cash with her,” Stephen Clark, national executive director of the Royal Canadian Legion headquarters told Global News.
“But she always has her phone and she always has a debit or credit card.”