The Orillia Public Library’s award-winning Remembrance Day event will be open to the public this week.
Jayne Turvey, community services co-ordinator for the city's municipal library, has been organizing the event since 2014.
Community members are welcome to take in the 100 window poster boards that tell the story of local people affected by wars. The back hall features uniforms and relics that belonged to soldiers such as Skid Watson, after whom the YMCA was named.
On Nov. 8, the library’s two program rooms will be transformed into mini-museums that feature weapons, memorabilia and artifacts.
“This is very near and dear to my heart because my father was taken prisoner at Dieppe,” Turvey said. “We are turning one of the rooms into various exhibits to honour that period of World War 2.”
About 750 students from schools around the region are registered to take in the events this week. Students will be tasked with walking around the exhibits to find the answers to an educational scavenger hunt.
In 2018, the library won the Angus Mowat Award of Excellence, an Ontario Public Library Service Award, for the event.
“It’s been such a success,” Turvey said. “It’s built every year, from having a couple of hundred students coming through to 750.”
She says the event is a way to give students and members of the community an opportunity to have something to remember Nov. 11.
“We tell them some local stories about the men who went overseas and the women who stayed back and did some wonderful things for the soldiers,” she said. “When they leave, they will have something to think about on Remembrance Day.”
Turvey says it’s important to remember those who fought for freedom.
“When we are saying their names or speaking of them, they are never really gone,” she said. “That’s why it’s important that we do this.”
This event is being held on:
- Tuesday, Nov. 8: 10 a.m.– 5 p.m.
- Wednesday, Nov. 9: 10 a.m.– 7 p.m.
- Thursday, Nov. 10: 10 a.m.- 7 p.m.
- Library closed Friday, Nov. 11
- Saturday, Nov. 12: 9 a.m.– 4 p.m.
“It’s open to everybody and it’s free,” Turvey said. “We’d love to see as many people as possible because a lot of work has gone into this.”
