North Etobicoke’s Royal Canadian Legion Branch 286 benefits from community generosity
Stripped and barren walls are all that remain of the once proud war museum at the Royal Canadian Legion Coronation Branch in north Etobicoke.
The torrential downpour of July 8 wreaked havoc at Branch 286 on Irwin Road, leaving the legion’s entire basement – including the registered Ontario war museum and its countless and invaluable pieces of memorabilia from battles gone by – under two-and-a-half feet of sewage.
“We were still in the process of fixing up after a flood in May when the second storm hit,” Ron Gregory, president of Branch 286, said following Monday’s Remembrance Day ceremony. “Because the July storm was so major across Etobicoke, they couldn’t get clean-up crews in here in time to really do anything. By the time they got here to clean up, the mold, mildew and everything rose to over four feet – and at that point it was just a write-off.”
While Gregory and several other legion members waded into the mess to salvage what they could, many items from the museum were either destroyed or badly damaged in the storm’s aftermath, including old military uniforms, old-time photos of local soldiers, pieces of antique weaponry, and wartime newspaper clippings – all items donated to the museum by local veterans.
The feeling of loss brought about by the destruction of so much history hit members especially hard this week, as many local vets from among Branch 286’s 300-strong membership gathered Monday to pay tribute to their fallen comrades on Remembrance Day.
Among those also paying tribute Monday were Constables Bill Vollmar and Jag Dhillon of 23 Division and Kuldeep Brar, Ravinder Singh and Ajay Pal Singh, members of the local Sikh Nation community – all of whom have pledged to help rebuild the Branch 286 museum.
Vollmar, who served in Afghanistan as a member of an international policing mission from 2009 to 2010, said his own personal experience serving overseas made the loss of the museum hit that much harder.
“I came by (Branch 286) to donate some of my own memorabilia from Afghanistan, and that’s when I found out the museum was completely destroyed. It’s just gone; everything is gone,” he said while standing in the cavernous remains of the legion’s basement museum and members’ lounge. “To see and hear that so much stuff was destroyed, it was sad because some of the people who donated that memorabilia might not be here anymore. And that was their families’ way of keeping that person and their memory alive – through pictures and memorabilia donated to the museum. So, yeah, it really hit home.”
It was through their neighbourhood outreach efforts as Community Response Officers, that Vollmar and his partner Dhillon came to explain the situation at the legion with Brar and the Singhs – and they immediately responded with an offer of help.
Through connections with Rosewood Furniture in Etobicoke, the men have committed to help build new cabinetry that will house the surviving memorabilia in the legion’s soon-to-be-rebuilt museum – including several kirpans donated by local Sikh veterans.
The Sikh Nation, too, has a long legacy of wartime heroics, explained Brar.
“We had almost 80,000 people dead in World War I and World War II,” he said, noting that Sikh soldiers fought alongside the British. “So, if we can help them to rebuild this museum, that is what we will do.”
But they can’t do it alone.
Gregory said that while insurance will likely cover much of the damage, there is much work to be done in order to bring the museum back to its former glory and beyond.
“Some of the memorabilia we lost, we’ll never, ever be able to replace, but we’re doing the best we can to rebuild. There is a silver lining here, though, in that we’re going to be able to make the museum bigger and better than ever,” he said, noting that the rebuild will include improvements to the legion’s accessibility.
“All the help we can get is so much appreciated – we couldn’t rebuild this place without the community’s support.”
Donations towards the museum rebuild can be dropped off at Branch 286, 11 Irwin Rd., during the legion’s biweekly luncheons on Thursdays and Fridays from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.
For more information, email [email protected]