Milton Dick (Oxley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am privileged to work with many worthwhile causes in our community—and there are many of them in our community. However, this afternoon I'd like to make special mention of one in particular, being YMCA Brisbane and their Red Poppy Project. As members of this House would be aware, 2018 marks the 100th year since the Armistice that ended World War I, where 61,530 Australians and millions more lost their lives. This year also marks 100 years since the YMCA introduced the wearing of the red poppy as a symbol of remembrance.

To honour those who made the ultimate sacrifice, YMCA Brisbane are undertaking the Red Poppy Project, by handmaking 80,000 poppies to display at YMCA Bowen Hills on Remembrance Day—one for every Australian and New Zealander killed in World War I. As part of the display, a special wall will be dedicated to the 394 YMCA representatives who served with the YMCA during the First World War. These men volunteered to work in war-torn countries without pay, without title, without recognition as a military force and without weapons. The project is being led by YMCA Group Services Manager Meg Woolf, alongside many other hardworking and dedicated volunteers like local Oxley resident John Westwood, from Mount Ommaney.

The poppies will be handmade across 62 YMCA Brisbane sites, alongside YMCA's gyms, childcare centres, youth activities, camping events and community programs. Interest has grown and now includes Girl Guide groups, fitness members, youth justice centres, men's sheds, children, women's groups, nursing homes, social clubs, retirement groups, state schools and accountancy firms. YMCA staff and their families have also pledged their support to the project and are busy undertaking this significant task. Most poppies are being carefully made out of paper. However, some beautiful crocheted and knitted poppies have already been received by the YMCA from community groups. This includes a waterfall of poppies in the stairwell of the YMCA head office, a garden of stem poppies, a wreath made of patty cake liners made by five-year-old children from a YMCA childcare centre, felt button poppies and a hanging garden of paper and fabric poppies.

Over the coming months, the YMCA will be hosting craft nights and working bees at a number of centres, and local residents are encouraged to take a poppy-making kit home. Working bees have been held as far away as Mount Isa and Moranbah, with interested community members willingly cutting, stemming, drilling, gluing, crocheting or knitting a variety of red poppies. I acknowledge the numerous men's sheds who've also pledged their support to the project by making and painting the display stands. Residents are invited to attend the Bowen Hills site to watch as the YMCA gradually create this large visual display of handmade poppies as a community commemoration. I extend my congratulations to the YMCA and wish them all the very best for this important project to recognise our fallen heroes from the First World War.