We have run out of white poppies. We plan to get more later in the fall.
Click here to download a Peace Poppies Order Form. You can mail, email or phone in your request. For educational use, please see the “Schools” tab at top right.
If you are looking instead for Red Poppies please see the Canadian Legion Red Poppy Campaign website.
We started wearing handmade white poppies many years ago. For us, wearing both red and white poppies is a way of saying “Remember the fallen, including civilians, and work for peace”. We have had many meaningful conversations with strangers that started with “What’s the white poppy for?”.
In Britain, the idea of decoupling Armistice Day, the red poppy and later Remembrance Day from their military culture dates back to 1926, just a few years after the British Legion was persuaded to try using the red poppy as a fundraising tool in Britain. A member of the No More War Movement suggested that the British Legion should be asked to imprint ‘No More War’ in the centre of the red poppies instead of ‘Haig Fund’ and failing this, pacifists should make their own flowers.
A few years later the idea was again discussed by the Co-operative Women’s Guild who in 1933 produced the first white poppies to be worn on Armistice Day (later called Remembrance Day). The Guild stressed that the white poppy was not intended as an insult to those who died in the First World War – a war in which many of the women lost husbands, brothers, sons and lovers. The following year the newly founded Peace Pledge Union joined the CWG in the distribution of the poppies and later took over their annual promotion.
I have always had respect and sympathy for veterans, who put their life, health and family on the line to serve. I believe they deserve recognition and support, but for years I was uncomfortable wearing a red poppy, because of the undercurrent of promotion and recruitment for current and future wars that I detect in many public events around the topic of supporting veterans. The white poppy attracts questions, and gives me a chance to explain the nuances of my support.
– Teresa Gagné, co-founder Vancouver White Poppies
For more thoughts on remembering all victims of war, please see our Community Voices page. There is a peace education kit with Canadian materials available on www.consciencecanada.ca (see “Remembrance Day Education kit” under the Resources tab). In addition, the Peace Pledge Union in Britain has great educational material, for example A Tale of Two Poppies.
October 2019 – The British Legion’s website on Remembrance now states, “We acknowledge innocent civilians who have lost their lives in conflict and acts of terrorism”. Up until last year, the Legion insisted that Remembrance Sunday should be concerned only with UK and allied armed forces personnel.
After Nov 3, delivery is unlikely to arrive by Nov 10. Click here to download our White Peace Poppies Order Form for 2024, including suggested donations. You can mail, email or phone in your request. For educational use please see the “Schools” tab at top right.
You can order white poppies online from the Peace Pledge Union in Britain (as we and many others do), but keep in mind overseas delivery can take several weeks unless you make special arrangements for faster shipping. We generally don’t process orders over 100 poppies to Canada, and have stopped sending poppies to the USA because it’s too much work with customs and all. We are trying to convince peace organizations in the USA to respond to the demand in that country by offering mail order service.
In 2019 we shipped white poppies to 49 communities across Canada. If you just want a few, and tell us where you are, there’s a chance we could forward your contact information to someone in your area. Our email address is: info@PeacePoppies.ca
Peace is good all year, and many people still want to wear white poppies outside Remembrance Day. You can also ask us to send you a reminder next year.
You can also make your own poppy – for example we’ve seen handmade felt poppies. Some are beautiful, all are heartwarming. If you do make some, we’d love to see a photo. See also “download and print” below .
We distribute poppies by donation as a consciousness raiser, not a fundraiser – we just try to break even (not counting our hours, gas, …) . Importing poppies costs us ~$.93 ea. This money goes to the Peace Pledge Union in Britain and helps fund their excellent peace education work. Our additional expenses for pins, postage, envelopes & printing are ~$.29/poppy for a total of ~$1.22poppy. Your donation of $1-$2/poppy lets us cover expenses and provide poppies at below cost to schools and disadvantaged groups.
We also recommend using a safety pin to attach the older white cloth poppies. Hold down the top front petal and push a safety pin once through the stiff back petal.
To attach it to clothing, hold top petal out of the way and insert safety pin through clothing and out again. Smooth poppy to hide pin.
Please see their website. In Fall 2009, shipping by air from London to Vancouver took about 5 business days. In 2010 air mail took 2 weeks, but “airsure” took 4 days. Shipments to us by surface mail took 7 to 8 weeks.
We used to make our own by drawing the outline of a flower on a piece of card and sticking it to a used button. If you have a printer that can print photos on 4×6 inch glossy paper (or a 4×6 card), click here to download a picture of 3 white poppies (pdf). Hand-drawn poppies may be better, especially if the ink from your printer is not waterproof.
click on image to download jpg
More economically, download and print the image of 6 flowers at home or at a photo shop. These are a bit smaller, closer to the red poppy size. Cut a piece of cloth adhesive tape (ex: duct tape) 1″x1/2″, fold a ridge, then stick to the back of the flower. You can then stick a pin (straight or safety) through the ridge in the tape. Or see picture of duct tape around safety pin.
Many people have for years been making their own poppies out of fabric, cardboard, felt, plastic or other materials. If you have homemade poppies, we would love to get a closeup photo and/or instructions on how to make them, to put on this website.
Depots
We are not aware of depots in Canada with available poppies.
If you want depots in your community, please approach likely businesses / organizations and encourage them to contact us for supplies and explanations.
In Quebec a sister organization Echec A La Guerre has a very successful network.
The straight pins supplied by the Legion with red poppies seem to hold well on traditional wool suit jackets or winter coats, but on contemporary clothing they often fall off. Here are a few tips for keeping one in place:
Slip a metal or plastic ‘earring back’ onto the end of the straight pin
‘Stitch’ the pin through the cloth more than once ___ __ ____ _
Replace the straight pin with a 3/4″ -1″ safety pin
Push the pin through the velcro on a jacket rather than the thinner nylon fabric. Be careful to not puncture the waterproof part of a jacket.
