For Chantal Beaulieu, what started as a way to connect people has grown into a way to remember every November in Dartmouth, N.S. “This project was started in 2020 and we had our residents at Oak Terrace Group that started making poppies together. We grew that year to 2,000 and that was a year when we weren’t able to do in-person ceremonies, so it was a perfect year to place them at the (Dartmouth) enotaph and allow our community to have a place in space to come and reflect individually,” Beaulieu said. “It caught on in the community and we since then have beautiful community volunteers that have helped take the cause and grow it to what we have as 18,000 this year. It’s amazing.” Working in the Oakwood Terrace Nursing home, she wanted a way for the seniors to remember. “I think it’s so important that we create opportunities like this to gather as a community to reflect, remember together as a collective group, because it’s so important that we never forget the sacrifices that have been made for us, and we need to teach the next generation,” she said. “The presence of the poppies in the community are a reminder of that important gesture each year to do so.” Beaulieu starts every year by hanging the hand-sewn poppies at the United Church in Dartmouth before moving them over to the cenoptaph. As the project has grown, Beaulieu has made changes. “It has is such a meaningful impact and I love to hear people’s stories of their loved ones that served,” she said. “That’s why three years ago I started a wall of honour. That’s a section of specific poppies that have individual names placed on them of veterans that people have submitted to us. Knowing a loved one, remembering and knowing a face to that person that that poppy represents. It definitely has a huge impact. We’re such a military-sector city, it’s a fitting place to launch something like this because we have so many connections with people who have served or presently serving.” Volunteer Ralph Sams helps because he said it’s about remembering. “I had relatives in the service. I’m old enough to have lived through World War Two, and a couple of young guys from our community were killed,” Sams said. “It’s a lot of memories and a lot of memories about this time of year.” Mildred Jackman sewed some of the poppies and loves what the project represents. “I knit and I sew them on because I totally enjoy it. It’s such a pleasure to see something on display on Remembrance Day, to honour those soldiers that gave us freedom,” she said. “I think we have a total of 12 ladies every Thursday that do this. Seeing it on display at a cenotaph where we’ll be honoring our soldiers on Nov. 11. It’s a pleasure to see.” Beaulieu is motivated to keep the project growing. “It started just as you know, a little in-house thing with a nursing home,” she said. “To think we brought so many different parts of the community together to be part of it. I have volunteers that meet weekly at Terrace throughout the year to help mend the ones from last year, put on the new ones that are of course being crocheted or knit, and those are all being dropped off to me throughout the year, which is to people in the community that have made some from home and bring them and they get added to each year display. “It just is beautiful that it’s just catching on each year and keeps growing. I know we’ll continue to grow it.” For more Nova Scotia news, visit our dedicated provincial page
