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VIDEO: Langley senior knits poppies for Remembrance

It’s the fourth year Irene Brummitt has raised funds for the Royal Canadian Legion Poppy Fund
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Langley senior Irene Brummitt has created more than 150 hand-knitted poppies for Remembrance Day. (Dan Ferguson/Langley Advance Times)

This Remembrance Day will mark the fourth year Langley resident Irene Brummitt, 93, has created hand-knitted poppies to raise funds for the Royal Canadian Legion Poppy Fund.

It was more of a challenge than usual because, with a COVID-19 restrictions in effect at the Avalon Gardens retirement community in Murrayville where she lives, there was no way to go out shopping for wool.

“When we were confined to our building, we couldn’t go out to buy what we needed,” Brummitt told the Langley Advance Times.

“So I had to round up any red in the building I could find, either some leftover wool somebody had, or the wool room where we stash it.”

Brummitt did not have a knitting partner to share the workload this year, so all of the creations are hers.

The result, 100 hand-knitted poppies, was neatly arranged in a picture frame at Avalon, where they were to be removed one by one as they were purchased by residents and staff.

“They sell themselves,” Brummitt remarked.

And, as of Wednesday, Nov. 3, she had knitted an additional 46 poppies, and planned to make more.

“I knit all the time.”

READ ALSO: VIDEO: Langley seniors knit poppies for Remembrance Day

As before, all donations raised by the poppies (suggested contribution is $7) will go directly to the Royal Canadian Legion Poppy Fund.

In three years, Brummitt estimated she has helped to raise $1,729 for the fund, and hopes to bring in another $900 this year.

“I still feel motivated [to make the poppies],” Brummitt shared, “because it’s something I can do, and it makes me feels useful.”

This year, her creations are being distributed by the Murrayville Pharmasave, which has promised to match donations.

READ MORE: Langley knitters stickhandle poppy project to help legion

Brummitt did not serve in the military, but has family members who did, including an uncle who died in in the Second World War and a grandfather who died at Gallipoli.


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Dan Ferguson

About the Author: Dan Ferguson

Best recognized for my resemblance to St. Nick, I’m the guy you’ll often see out at community events and happenings around town.
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