The following is shared with permission from Valerie Beukema, a member of the Red Deer Pro-Life Board, who organized the 100,000 flag display in Red Deer, Alberta at the end of May. Each flag represents the memory of one of the children lost to abortion each year in Canada. As you can see from the pictures, the number of deaths is truly staggering.
It took 150 happy helpful people and families from all over (Red Deer, Rocky Mountain House, Edmonton, Olds, Ponoka, and Lacombe) from 8 – 9:30 AM to plant the flags, and about 100 people of all ages helped to pick up the flags from 4-4:30 PM.
Because we planted the flags in an “L“ along the corner of 22nd St and 40th Ave, and along a valley, it was impossible to get a picture of the whole display. But we were certainly very visible!
God gave us a beautiful rain last week to soften up the ground and a beautiful sunny day for the whole event. The volunteers were very impressed with the project and we all added pictures and comments to social media. Several of us stayed with the flag display all day and began conversations with those walking past, walking their dogs, or bicycling past.
As expected, we experienced some positive and some negative reactions. One 70 year old lady said we should first care for born children. She said she had had an abortion with no negative guilt feelings. So sad. One older gentleman asked me if we were from the Catholic church or the flat-earth society. I assured him that we are an organization that cares about women. To another woman, I was happy to explain that the local Pregnancy Care Centre supports women, no matter what they choose, also supporting the women with prenatal care, courses on bringing up children, nutrition courses, and by having a Home for the mother and child to stay if needed, and much much more. She wrote it in her computer.
We had many very interesting comments, including “Are these biodegradable?” One man said he agreed with us with the exception of cases of rape. I explained that those born out of rape are so thankful to be born alive and are offended that others wish them dead. He pondered on that and agreed that I had a point.
Overall, we got many positive honks, and some pedestrians and neighbours even came back to help us clean up the flags because they agreed with the display. It was such a family-friendly pro-life activity, and so great to see people from so many churches and towns work together so cheerfully. Thank you for the opportunity to do the display!
If you are interested in organizing a display of 100,000 or 10,000 flags in your community, please contact Cassy at [email protected].