Farewell to the Palm Project: A Reflection on the History

For thirty-three years, parishioners and friends of the Church of the Nativity have helped Christians enter Holy Week on Palm Sunday.

After several years of providing palm branches and crosses to parishes, St. Margaret’s Anglican Church in Hamilton retired their palm project in 1991. After this retirement, what was then St. Mary’s decided to explore the possibility of filling their shoes. Starting slowly that first year, St. Mary’s supplied 500 crosses to five ecumenical neighbours, raising a staggering profit of $32.85. Of course, what was important was the fellowship that began! It’s hard to believe, but as the Palm Project got underway, no one involved knew how to fold a cross—and this was before YouTube!

The project expanded. Harold Brooker and John McBride developed a prototype device to cut the individual palm strips, simplifying and speeding up what had been done by hand with scissors! The Palm Project grew to supply churches from Fort Erie to Toronto with crosses, strips, and branches. For several years, the project supplied a wholesale business, and crosses were being shipped from coast to coast to coast! During the monthlong project each year, more than 10,000 crosses were made.

Countless people were needed to make this endeavour possible! From cross-folders to cleaners, from cutters to “strippers,” from sweeping the floors to doing load after load of laundry, from the dreaded quality control inspector to the packagers and couriers— there was a job for everyone, and folk found their way into tasks they enjoyed.

In 2006, St. Mary’s and Grace Church merged at St. Mary’s location on King St. The new Church of Nativity continued the Palm Project.

The Palm Project has been much more than a successful fundraiser: it was a time of fellowship. While working away, people would go from just smiling at fellow parishioners across the aisle on Sundays to getting to know one another. We learned to try to limit John R’s access to the water spray bottles to help ourselves stay dry, and we looked forward to seeing Cocoa and the other dogs who would come for moral support.

The Palm Project has been joy and stress, and has nourished body and soul. But for everything, there is a season, and the Church of the Nativity has discerned that this Lent will be the final time that people gather in Addison Hall to work with palms. We will be putting away our scissors, hanging up our towels, and giving thanks for a ministry that has helped us and others celebrate Jesus’s triumphant entry into Jerusalem, following the glory of the palms to the glory of the Resurrection.