A campaign to gather 5,000 knitted and crocheted poppies to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Royal Canadian Legion has reached a very impressive milestone.

Poppy Project administrator Wendy Fortier recently accepted close to 997 knitted and crocheted poppies from the Orléans based Busy Fingers knitting club, putting the number gathered so far at more than 4,000.

“I’m just amazed at how this has taken off as fast as it has,” says Fortier, who is the current president of the Ladies Auxiliary at the Orléans branch of the Royal Canadian Legion.

The Orléans Legion is among several Legion branches in Ontario that have launched their own Poppy Projects.

Fortier says they plan to attach the poppies to a large cargo net, or nets, and drape the exterior wall of the building with them.

“It should be quite impressive,” Fortier, adding the initial success has inspired her to increase their goal from 5,000 to 6,000 poppies.

Busy Fingers president Eileen McCaughey found out about the project through on Facebook.

The club is well known for knitting and crocheting scarves, mittens and socks which they then donate to various organizations every winter. McCaughey thought the Poppy Project would provide the club’s members with a nice change. They were quick to answer the call and then some, knitting and crocheting close to 1,000 poppies over the course of a couple of weeks, using wool donated by local members of the public. One member knitted nearly 250 poppies on her own.

“Can you believe it? 997 poppies,” McCaughey exclaims with immense pride.

The Royal Canadian Legion was founded in 1925 as the Canadian Legion of the British Empire Services League. The organization was essentially an amalgamation of 15 various veteran groups that formed in the years following the First World War. The largest of them was The Great War Veterans Association.

In 1960, Queen Elizabeth II granted the Canadian Legion of the British Empire Services League royal patronage and so it became the Royal Canadian Legion.

Today, there more than 1,350 branches of The Royal Canadian Legion located in communities across Canada. The Orléans Legion is branch 632 in Ontario. It was formed in 1980.

Anyone wishing to take part in the Poppy Program by knitting or crocheting poppies can contact Fortier by email wemafortier@gmail.com. The only set standard is they need to be red with a black centre.

One of the things that Fortier has found so interesting in the early stages of the program is the many different types of poppies she’s received so far. They are all poppies, but they’ve been created with different shades of red.

The poppies will be hung outside the Legion next October in the weeks leading up to Remembrance Day.