After a slight delay due to windy conditions, the fourth iteration of the Niagara-on-the-Lake Museum’s Poppy Project was fully installed Monday morning.
Displays at Legion Branch 124 and RiverBrink Art Museum in Queenston were installed before high winds postponed the museum and the old Court House’s installations.
On Monday morning, project volunteers were out and ready to assemble displays alongside help from Davey Expert Tree Company.
Rain was expected to start shortly after the museum’s installation began, but it didn’t stop the dedicated team of poppy makers from getting the job done, ahead of Remembrance Day on Monday, Nov. 11.
“Even when it’s bad weather, we remember that all those boys in the trenches dealt with so much,” said Barbara Worthy, the museum’s community engagement coordinator.
“When we’re putting it up and we’re cold and we’re wet, we’re doing it in the spirit of remembrance.”
In its fourth year now, the Poppy Project has more than 7,000 poppies attached to 18 nets, each more than 14 feet long.
Worthy thanked Davey Expert Tree Company for volunteering its efforts to help hang up the massive nets.
“We couldn’t do this without them. This is thousands of dollars of love labour,” she said.
Arborists with the company also cut down extra dead branches off of a tree outside the museum to ensure the safety of volunteers.
Denise Ascenzo, a member of the Niagara Historical Society, has been helping out with the poppy project for all four years.
“It’s an honour to be able to show respect for the men and the women who went ahead of us to fight for the peace we have here in Canada,” she said.
Ascenzo helps out with poppy and net-making alongside other volunteers.
“We make sure that after (the displays) are done we dry them before we wrap them in sheets and tuck them away for next year,” she said.
With many poppies and nets to make by hand, the poppy brigade is always looking for more volunteers— and have had a wave of new members this year, she said.
This year marked Diane Fovargue’s first year of helping out with the poppy project.
She volunteered to help make poppies after hearing about the project from one of her friends in the brigade, she said.
“So in the evening, watching television— I made poppies,” Fovargue said.
The poppy project is always looking for more volunteers for the coming years, especially younger people, Ascenzo said.
