After months of planning, hosting workshops and uniting community volunteers, the Brantford Poppy Project committee set up a number of poppy installations at different locations throughout the city on Sunday, November 1, 2026.
The community-driven art initiative has transformed over 22,000 handmade crocheted and knitted poppies into meaningful public art installations, where residents and visitors can pause, reflect and remember the sacrifices made by those who served the country.
What started less than a year ago as an idea among members of the Brantford Station Neighbourhood Association to honour local veterans from the area, quickly snowballed into a community-wide initiative.
The neighbourhood association eventually developed a proposal for the project and pitched it to the City of Brantford, gaining its support. Organizers soon started working with the Royal Canadian Legion, Dunsdon Branch #461, which granted permission to use the symbol of the poppy and provided a $1,000 donation to kickstart the project.
City Council later contributed $15,000, with additional support coming from local craft supply stores like Len’s Mill Store and Mary Maxim in Paris, as well as those making private donations.
Made by volunteers, makers and residents, each poppy was individually crocheted, knitted or crafted and then tied to netting to create large-scale displays. Since the first Poppy Project workshop in March, the committee has collected more than 22,000 poppies, surpassing its initial goal of 10,000.
“Hundreds of people in this community rallied together to get this done,” said Chad Martin, chair of the Brantford Poppy Project. “We hosted countless workshops, people worked poppies and nets from home and along the way, we created friendships and memories.”
That community effort can now be seen throughout the city, with poppy installations set up at the following locations:
- CNR Gore Park, near the train station
- Jubilee Terrace Park, beside the Brantford Armouries
- Tom Thumb Park
- The Cenotaph
- The Bell Memorial
- The Brant War Memorial
- The Brant County Museum and Archives
- The Canadian Military Heritage Museum
- Royal Canadian Legion, Dunsdon Branch #461
Two additional displays were also installed at the Polish War Veterans Memorial in St. Joseph Cemetery for All Saints’/Souls’ Day.
When asked how it felt to finally be at the stage of putting the poppies on display, both Martin and Stacey Bester, vice-Chair, said they felt overwhelmed.
“It is truly humbling to know that hundreds of people in the community made this happen,” said Martin. “Everyone put time and effort into this, and they did it out of the goodness of their own hearts.”
Bester added, “It really is just the epitome of a community project.”
Looking upon the display at the Bell Memorial, where people like Sharon and Rob Gashgarian, and Justin Bester worked to put the finishing touches on the installation, Martin couldn’t help but get emotional.
“I mean, there’s Sharon just working away. She’s been an absolute lifesaver with this. She’s one of the people that originally proposed this concept in particular [the set up at Bell Memorial], and this has been on her mind all day, every day, for the last year,” he said. “And what I love about this location is, not just because of the way it cascades down the steps, but because of that figure in the bronze. That’s Cyril Kinsella; he was from Brantford and he was injured during the First World War, and Walter Allward used him as his model for this monument. It’s just so poignant that this figure is of a person from Brantford, who served in the First World War and now these poppies are here beside him.”
After taking a pause, he continued, “It’s just overwhelming, and we haven’t even gotten to the other spots yet but I know they’re just going to be gorgeous. There’s still a lot of work ahead of us, but what I love about this is that it’s a project that can theoretically never end. And hopefully, people will appreciate it enough to keep wanting to do this. It’s more than we could have ever asked for.”
Commenting on the Brantford Poppy Project’s tagline, “Every Poppy Tells a Story,” Bester said the initiative has encouraged people to share memories, stories and connections to the past.
“Running the social media and seeing the people thank us on our posts and telling stories, that’s what it’s all about. It really is creating a dialogue for people and an opportunity to tell stories,” she said. “We had even posted some war-time recipes every once in a while onto social media, and people started commenting things like, ‘My nana used to make that!’ ‘I used to do that with my mom, I had no idea the history behind it,’ or ‘I remember those when I was a kid,’ and it was so interesting to see all those memories flooding back to people and the conversations it started. I think these installations are just going to stop people in their tracks.”
With all of the displays officially up, comments and pictures soon began flooding social media.
Shawn P. Stemmler was just one of the many who made a post to Facebook on Sunday afternoon saying, “I’m absolutely blown away by this amazing tribute to our men and women who have served, and our fallen soldiers who didn’t make it home. I was driving down Brant Ave. this morning and saw these nets with hand made poppies up at the Cenotaph and Tom Thumb Park. Thank you, thank you, thank you to whoever is behind this initiative and to the, I’m sure many, people behind making everyone of these red poppies with absolute love and determination.”
Kimberly De Jong’s reporting is funded by the Canadian government through its Local Journalism Initiative.The funding allows her to report rural and agricultural stories from Blandford-Blenheim and Brant County. Reach her at kimberly.dejong@brantbeacon.ca.
