The Royal Canadian Legion Branch #70 in North Battleford wants to work with the Fred Light Museum and the city to create a banner program to remember local veterans. (submitted photo/Town of Battleford)

By Angela Brown

Honouring our veterans

Legion looking to start banner program to honour North Battleford veterans

Mar 27, 2020 | 3:36 PM

The North Battleford community may soon see a banner program to honour its veterans, similar to the one started in Battleford last year.

The Royal Canadian Legion (RCL) Branch #70 based in North Battleford is beginning work to start the Honour Our Veterans Banners program to remember the city’s veterans.

The banners would hang on lampposts in the city leading up to and continuing through the week of Remembrance Day in November.

“One of the reasons that we wanted to have the program is because it went ahead in Battleford, and it went very well,” Legion Branch # 70 president Marilyn Clark said. “We were approached and asked if we were going to be doing it, and we decided yes we would be doing it.”

She said there is a need for it here, because many people have loved ones in their families who were veterans.

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She said the project is just in the preliminary stages, and not at the point where applications are being accepted yet from families wishing to have a loved one or relative featured on one of the banners.

Clark said the branch made a request to the City of North Battleford to hold the program. It also asked the Fred Light Museum to administer it, similar to the work the museum did for the Royal Canadian Legion Branch #9 which initiated the project for the Battleford community last year.

Legion Branch #70 isn’t asking for any percentage of profits from banner sales, so all revenue would benefit the Fred Light Museum Board. The legion will need to ask the City of North Battleford for permission to hang the banners on lightstands along 100 Street, and the city would need to install the banners.

For its part, the museum board would accept applications, complete a screening process and print the banners in the same manner as the town’s program that started in 2019.

Town of Battleford council approved Fred Light Museum’s (FLM) request to administer the program in North Battleford with Legion Branch #70. One caveat is the legion may not use the town’s logo on the banners because it is not a town project. Councillors also asked Legion Branch #70 to provide more details of the estimated hours of the work to administer the program in North Battleford.

Mayor Ames Leslie told battlefordsNOW town councillors wanted more information to find out who would do all the work to get the banners ready for the Legion Branch #70’s first program in North Battleford.

While town council was glad to see the project now starting in the city too, “they just don’t want it to be Fred Light Museum employees 100 per cent doing [all the work],” Leslie said.

“If our employees are doing all the work to get these banners in place for the North Battleford Legion, is there enough value for what is being charged, just to make sure the cost of our employees doing it is covered,” he said.

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angela.brown@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @battlefordsnow