It was a snow covered, cool day with great attendance.

Thank you to the friends and neighbours who celebrated Breakfast in the Park with us this year. Again the weather was wonderful and the volunteers exemplary. A very special thankyou to our sponsors and donors.

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Thank you to the friends and neighbours who celebrated Breakfast in the Park with us this year. Again the weather was wonderful and the volunteers exemplary. A very special thankyou to our sponsors and donors.

The society has been Hosting a Remembrance Day Memorial service at the park for the past 5 years, 2016 will be our 6th annual service. The park has a memorial monument to honor and recognize those men and women who have served our country for several years which was built by Tony LaPorte from beach stone and cement. Each year the attendance has been growing where we are now getting between 75 and 100 people in attendance.
At one of the monthly meetings of the St. Joseph and Area Historical Society a discussion was initiated to see what we could do to create a greater awareness and provide a higher profile of the monument in the park for the Remembrance Day Services.
After some investigation we discovered that VAC, Veteran Affairs Canada had a Cenotaph/Monument Restoration Program where you could apply for grant funding for not-for-profit organizations as well as provinces, territories and Municipalities.
The funding program was initiated to provide funding to repair, restore or expand a structure that was erected to commemorate Canadian Veterans or war dead.
Based on the criteria for qualification the SJAHS filled an application to VAC for funding for our project. At the same time a presentation was made to Municipality of Bluewater to advise what the Society was planning to change at the park and to request support through a grant application.
On March 08th, 2016 the Society received confirmation that our grant request was approved, subsequently the Municipality of Bluewater approved our grant application and the project was on its way.
As of today the Monument Beautification Project has been completed in the park. The total budget for the project was approximately $7,000.00. The project was completely funded through the generous financial support of the following;

Lakewood Garden Centre
McCann Redi-Mix Inc
Municipality of Bluewater
Murals in Metals
St. Joseph & Area Historical Society
Veteran Affairs Canada

We have great new signs to direct visitors from St Joseph Memorial Park to the Archives. Thank you. Mark Tucker, Ken Munger and Frank Ihrig

Sign at park entrance

Sign at Archive Entrance

Mike Miller, President of the St. Joseph & Area Historical Society, was recently honoured with the Ontario Volunteer Services Award in recognition of his 15+ years of continuous service to the Society since it was founded in 1997.

Read more in the Lakeshore Advance

The St. Joseph and Area Historical Society of St. Joseph, ON placed third in the annual Communities in Bloom 2015 Gardens of Remembrance program with their submission, the “St. Joseph Memorial Park”. The garden in St. Joseph’s Memorial Park was the only Ontario award recipient in the Garden of Remembrance program and the Historical Society was presented with a $100.00 gift card from Home Hardware.

The staff and owner, Gary MacLean of Home Hardware, Grand Bend are pictured with St. Joseph and Area Historical Society representatives, Martha Mungar and Mark Tucker.

Service

Wednesday November 11 at 11 AM

On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month,
Canadians are asked to pause in memory of the thousands of men and women
who sacrificed their lives in military service.

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Thank you to the friends and neighbours who celebrated Breakfast in the Park with us this year. The weather was wonderful and the volunteers exemplary. A very special thankyou to our sponsors and donors.

Check out this post with photos from Ontario Travel Divas. Its all about the society and the breakfast.

See you next year – 3rd Saturday in August.