Our flag program was started by Bruce Flesher in 2008 after he returned from a trip to Houston, Texas to visit with family. While there he visited a Rotary club that was using a Flag program to raise funds for their club. It involved the club members planting flags on the front lawns of people for National Holiday weekends in return for a club donation. He thought that it might work for us here in Edmonton and it turned out he was right! We needed to purchase flags, poles and stakes and organize teams of members to sell, plant and retrieve the flags several times each year.
In the spring of 2009 several club members (Bruce Flesher, Bill Skelly, Ted Griffiths, Larry Sales, Hal Quilliam, Orville Sleen and Rose Marie Basaraba) canvassed the neighbourhoods they lived in and managed to sell over 260 flags. Bruce alone sold more than one hundred in his neighbourhood of Blackburne, so many that he was known to his neighbours as ’The King of Blackburne’.
Bruce Flesher, unknown, Joyce Flesher, Bill Skelly, Loraine Skelly and Hal Quilliam in 2009
Bruce Flesher’s ongoing dedication, hard work and long hours really helped to get this project off the ground and keep it going for many years. The Strathcona Flag Program has been our main fundraiser for projects that are not eligible for Alberta Gaming restricted funds. We now plant about five hundred flags for the Victoria Day weekend, Canada Day weekend and Labour Day weekend each year. This involves almost every able bodied member we have, plus a few family members and friends who have volunteered their time as well.