Order your flag today at raiseaflag.ca and be a hero to our heroes
They answered the call when our country needed heroes. This November, Canadians can honour, thank and support our veterans by joining Operation Raise a Flag.
Through the campaign, people can purchase a Canadian flag online for $25 or $50. On Remembrance Day, the flags will be planted on the lawn of the Sunnybrook Veterans Centre, the largest veterans care facility in Canada. It's a powerful way to honour the courage and sacrifice of our country's heroes.
Money raised through the campaign will benefit the Sunnybrook Veterans Centre and the Veterans Comfort Fund. The fund helps ensure that veterans enjoy the best possible life experience by providing innovative equipment, continued learning opportunities, special outings and events, along with social and arts activities.
Don Stewart is a resident of the Sunnybrook Veterans Centre, which is home to 500 Canadian veterans of the Second World War and Korean War.
In the spring of 1942 and just shy of 17, Don enlisted in the Royal Canadian Naval Volunteer Reserve. Thanks to a phony letter of signed permission from his mother, he made it past the recruiting officer. Despite the fact that his parents were not on board with the idea, he ventured off to sea.
"Moving across the Atlantic Ocean, at only eight knots, we were sitting ducks, for the German U-boats," says Don.
In one 1944 convoy, an allied ship sank with another man named Donald Stewart on board, and Don's parents were notified that their son had died at sea. With no mail delivery, Don did not keep in touch with his parents and so they were unaware of this error.
At the end of the war, he came home unannounced and shocked his parents.
Watch Don tell his story here or view in YouTube
Order your flag today at raiseaflag.ca and be a hero to our heroes
This content was produced by The Globe and Mail's advertising department, in consultation with Sunnybrook. The Globe's editorial department was not involved in its creation.