When the Fort Frances Royal Canadian Legion Branch 29 put out a call for family members to honour their family members and loved ones who had served in the military with banners they expected to get 10 or 12 in the first year but the response turned up almost 70 in the first year alone with more to come for next Remembrance Day.
Branch 29 office manager, Veronica Davis has been organizing the project.
“Our main objective was to get veterans recognized for what they’ve done or are doing,” Davis said. “It’s just been phenomenal the way that families have stepped up and said ‘yep, we want this person to be recognized.’”
The trend started in New Brunswick, according to Davis, about 10 years ago.
“I ran across it online and one of our members had seen it in Selkirk (MB), because they’ve been doing it, and we just got the ball rolling here,” Davis said.
The Legion members decided to start the project here in Fort Frances and they placed an ad with the Times as well as posting it on social media and spreading the word around the community, person to person. The call was for family members to buy the banners in memory or in honour of their loved ones who have or are serving.
The production of the banners was an idea Davis brought to Times commercial printing specialist Rosanne Farmer as a project the Times could do for the legion.
“When Veronica approached me back in April or May she said she’d seen these elsewhere and thought it would be a really nice way to honour our veterans, and asked if it was something the Times could handle.”
Farmer said it was something she thought the Times could handle and they started working on a design template.
After the call went out for families to honour their loved ones who had served, the response was much higher than Davis’s initial expectation of 10 or 12. So much so that the Times had to outsource the final printing of the banners to ensure they could be done in time to fly the banners ahead of Remembrance Day.
She says the first time Davis reported back they had 25 to make which was double the initial estimate.
“Then she kept calling and [there were] more and more and we ended up with 66 the first time around,” Farmer said. “There’s been so many positive comments, that we’ve got another 17 or 18 to do, unfortunately we won’t get them up for this year.”
Farmer says a lot of work has gone into making sure they were ready to get to the printer.
“It’s been a lot of work, not just for me but we’ve had Justin (Newman) and Alex (Denby) doing the scanning, and Lincoln (Dunn) doing the colour correcting,” Farmer said.
She’s also learned a lot about those who have served from the area in the process of the project.
“I knew a lot of these people as older adults,” Farmer said. “And now I’m seeing them as young men and women. Some of them were like babies when they went overseas, so, so young. Some of them gave their lives, and they all went over there knowing that that could happen.”
The process has given her a different perspective.
“It humbles you, honestly,” Farmer said. “To think that they went over there and then they came back and lived their lives and were big parts of our community. So it’s been a trip, a lot of work but it’s been a fun project. We’ve had children, and grandchildren, and cousins and uncles and aunts that are doing these flags, when they come in they’re so happy to do something for their family as some way of acknowledging that they’re going to be remembered, they’re not going to be forgotten.”
The Fort Frances Power Corporation helped to put the banners up on the poles along Front and Church Streets, as well as Victoria Ave and they ran out of hangers for the poles so there are three in the windows of Leon’s on Scott St. as well. The hope is to get additional hangers for the new additions to the collection for next year.
