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Yonge Street banners pay tribute to fallen Andreans




By Brock Weir

November is here and it is time to Remember.

Last week, the Royal Canadian Legion, in conjunction with the Town of Aurora, were hard at work hanging banners throughout the historic Yonge Street corridor paying tribute to fallen soldiers and veterans young and old. It's the second year running for the Legion program and 2017 welcomed some new faces to the mix.

North on Yonge Street, however, another tribute to the fallen is unfolding right near St. Andrew's College.

The evocative banners, dominated by black and white portraits of unformed men on a sea of red, were hung earlier this fall, paying tribute to St. Andrew's College alumni who paid the ultimate sacrifice.

Featuring fallen Andreans researched by groups of students under the leadership of teacher Melissa Ramone, the banners were designed by Michael Roy and Paul Mosey, among others, to deliver a poignant message to the community.

“The Fallen Heroes program is something near and dear to our hearts,” says Mr. Roy. “Part of my portfolio in Business Development is helping the community understand we have been entrenched in Aurora since 1926. The School was founded 1899, but we moved to Aurora in 1926. I find oftentimes we're [considered] the school up on the hill that people know of, but don't really know about. We want the community to know who we are. The banners on Yonge Street are an extrapolation of that.” With the soldiers selected and their portraits uncovered, it was up to Roy and Mosey to come up with the design. The aim was to make a striking impression on drivers and encourage passers-by and foot traffic to stop, pause, and learn more.

“We wanted to work with the Town so we could be in partnership with what they were doing [with the Legion],” he explains. This was our first project that we worked on with them to say, ‘Let's try and have some synergies between what the Town is doing in celebrating Aurora residents vs. St. Andrew's alumni. Way back in wartimes, the school was predominantly boarding where today we have 390 day students and 260 boarders, so it is probably not Aurora residents but we worked in conjunction with the Town to try and compliment and have some synergies with their designs.

“We hope people understand that Canadians sacrificed in order for us to have our freedoms, first and foremost, that people lost their lives in the ultimate sacrifice for those things. Those are the two core messages. A secondary message is that the St. Andrew's community is working in partnership with the Town of Aurora and while the Town lost its citizens, St. Andrews, as a member of the community of Aurora lost some of its citizens as well and it is a shared memorial.”

 

 

Excerpt: November is here and it is time to Remember. Last week, the Royal Canadian Legion, in...


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