The community run Remembrance Day memorial in London today that you probably don't know about
CBC
This year's Remembrance Day ceremony at London's Victoria Park is invitation only, leaving some with nowhere to go to pay tribute to our veterans.
But other ceremonies are happening across town at the little-known Remembrance Gardens, a community run memorial at River Road and Veterans Memorial Parkway.
There will be two ceremonies today at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. with a trumpeter, piper and some singing. Londoners can also expect some guest speakers, a poem by a 99-year old veteran, and socializing over refreshments where people can talk and tell stories.
"So, it's a good place to talk to veterans," said Seumas Wilson, the organizer of the event. He is also the director of The Remember November 11 Association, which runs the garden.
Wilson says past events at the gardens have attracted 200 to 300 people.
"The main gist of our group is to honour our fallen, to basically teach our children and to honour those that serve Canada, including our current veterans," he said.
The memorial gardens where the ceremonies will be held, can be found just off the highway, year round. It started back in 2014 when Wilson thought of planting some poppies to honour the beginning of the First World War.
With some consultation with veterans, the gardens have grown, little-by-little, with monument stones, flags and flowers. It now includes a 5,400 square foot poppy garden that blooms in the summer.
"We actually get no funding from any level of government," Wilson explained.
They've been supported by veterans, businesses, and various groups, all local, both financially and with things like paving stones, hoses to water the gardens and mounds of dirt.
The gardens currently honour Londoners who lost their lives in the First World War.
"We didn't realize that 1,200 people from London got killed in World War I," said Wilson. "And nobody really knew that until we started doing this research, so it really ties together with the educational part that we're trying to accomplish."
He says 20 cars stop by the gardens every day.
"I think a lot of people don't know how to connect sometimes," Wilson said, "and we're giving them a way to do that: to connect to their past or to connect to London's past or to connect to Canada's past."