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Blackfalds Veterans Memorial receives $25,000 federal grant

Veterans from the Blackfalds area will be remembered with a granite and glass memorial in the park to surround the Blackfalds Field House.

Veterans from the Blackfalds area will be remembered with a granite and glass memorial in the park to surround the Blackfalds Field House.

Blackfalds Veterans Memorial, a nine-metre long, curved wall, will have names of those who served Canada during the First and Second World Wars, Korean War, in peacekeeping missions and in Afghanistan.

On Thursday, Wetaskiwin MP Blaine Calkins announced the $60,000 project will receive $25,675 from the Community War Memorial Program.

The grant program matches money raised up to a maximum of $50,000 so Blackfalds and Area Historical Society, who came up with the idea for the project last November, will be re-applying for more.

Currently Blackfalds doesn’t have a monument to recognize its veterans.

“We thought we’d rectify that,” said society president Judy Carleton.

Names will be etched in black, shiny granite on the 1.8-metre high wall, decorated with red glass mosaic poppies.

The poem In Flanders Field by John McCrae will be stamped along the edge of a circle of coloured pavement on the ground.

Three black metal benches will face the monument on an arched pathway.

Voyager Art and Tile Inc., of Red Deer, has been hired to build the memorial.

Blackfalds Field House, to be built at 4500 Womacks Road, and the monument will be right on the Trans Canada Trail.

She said as part of the landscaping, installation will have to wait until the field house is built, and the memorial will probably be in place next year.

An unveiling ceremony will be held.

Carleton has so far collected the names of about 68 veterans, including four who lost their lives in conflicts.

She encourages people to contact her at 403-885-4314 if they know of veterans for the memorial.

Each veteran listed will have a page in a corresponding memorial book at Blackfalds Archives.

szielinski@www.reddeeradvocate.com