While these photos are from last year, as is the text below, you’ll see most of the same faces if you pop in and see the hardworking crew making Palm Crosses and Strips. Here’s a sense of what happens in the Palm Project.
Each year as Lent deepens at the Nativity, a crew of parishioners and friends come out to join in the annual Palm Project. This year was the twenty-fourth year in which the parish has organized and prepared palm fronds, palm strips, and palm crosses for parishes throughout Hamilton and even as far away as Alberta!
Gathering around 9am and working until 2pm over five days, a gallant crew carefully trimmed more than 5000 strips for distribution, and made more to prepare the more than 5000 crosses they folded!
Here’s a behind-the-scenes look at what’s involved in a project of this scale.
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Here’s where things start: Blanche and Martha are hard at work breaking apart the palms from the tight-knit, folded-up way they come to us, just off the tree. It’s a good work-out, as each bundle needs to be whacked against the floor to loosen things up before they start to be separated! |
| Next up, Yvonne is hard at work trimming the now split apart fronds and starting to prepare some of the strips that will go out to parishes. |  |
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John is hard at work trimming both the length and the width of the strips, so that crosses can be made from them. |
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You can see Brian’s focus as he begins to form the loop that will be the arm of a palm cross. |
| Susan pauses to smile indulgently at the photographer, having formed both arms of the cross she’s folding. |  |
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Jim trims up the edges of the cross he’s just finished folding. Sadly, this shot doesn’t show his dog Koko, who doesn’t fold any crosses but does offer moral support with the project! |
| Here’s the very last of the packages ready for pick-up–after a busy week of many being delivered, and many being collected.
The great thing about the week before Holy Week is time visiting with fellow Anglicans, and with people from a multitude of other denominations. On Sunday, we’ll all remember Jesus entering Jerusalem — and all that lies in store in the week ahead. |
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A final panorama shot of one day with folk hard at work. |
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May your celebrations this Holy Week and through the Great Three Days draw you closer to the unfolding mystery of God’s love!