Flannel Project Newsletter…
In just 12 months, The Flannel Project has grown from personal grief into a lifeline, reaching survivors across the country, sparking national conversations, and laying the foundation for Australia's first veteran suicide postvention network.
🌸 June 21st: A Day That Changed Everything
On the winter solstice, something extraordinary happened. Over 200 people joined our 2nd year in a row, Wear a Flan 4 Shan: The Silent Walk Home at Brisbane, bringing together families, survivors, service members, and supporters in the largest dedicated gathering for veteran suicide remembrance our community has seen.
With flannel shirts on backs and flags in our hands, we walked in silence for those who never made it home.
"I've been waiting for something like this for 8½ years. No one's done it, until now." — Gwen Cherne, Australian Veterans' Families Advocate Commissioner
Mark your calendar: June 21st, 2026 is our next Wear a Flan 4 Shan.
🌼 Flannel Flower Memorial Garden, A Space for Healing and Learning
We’re in the early stages of creating the Flannel Flower Memorial Garden, a dedicated space in Brisbane to honour veterans lost to suicide. This peaceful garden will offer a place for reflection, remembrance, and healing for families and the wider community.
But it’s more than just a memorial. The garden will also serve as an educational space, helping school children learn about mental health, resilience, and the power of compassion.
We’re currently seeking the right location and welcome support or suggestions from the community.
→ The Flannel Flower — The Flannel Project
🌺 Introducing Flannel Flower Day
We're now working with the Federal Government to establish June 21st as National Flannel Flower Day, a day of remembrance, mental health awareness, and solidarity for Australia's veteran community.
It’s the beginning of a national moment, a chance for every Australian to honour the 1,600+ veterans we’ve lost to suicide since 1997 and to stand beside the survivors they left behind.
🧡 Now Live: The Flannel Field
Our digital memorial is now open.
If you’ve lost a veteran to suicide, you can now add their name, story, and photo to The Flannel Field, a quiet online space to honour their life. A digital flannel flower is planted with each tribute, as a small but meaningful symbol of remembrance.→ Add a tribute now: Flannel Field — The Flannel Project
👣 Join This Month's 10 Before 10 Challenge
Walk 10,000 steps before 10am on July 10th. Pledge $10. Honor a life.
Open to everyone, individuals, schools, gyms, offices, walking groups. You don't have to be a veteran. You just have to care.→ Sign up at www.theflannelproject.com/10before10
🎧 Coming Soon: A Voice from the Frontlines of Grief
Courtney, one of the closest people to Shan, is bringing raw, unfiltered conversations about survival, healing, and hope to our new conversation series.
🛠️ SOS Flannel Card:
The SOS Flannel Card offers up to $1,000 in personalised support for survivors of veteran suicide — but it's more than financial help. It's a tailored care pathway built around three phases: stabilisation, grief, and growth.
From urgent practical needs like grocery vouchers, GP visits, and emergency counselling, to longer-term grief support and post-traumatic growth resources, each card is issued after a needs assessment to ensure it reaches those who need it most. We walk with survivors through the early shock, the heavy middle, and the slow rebuilding
Plus: Download our free Survivor Toolkit for practical guidance during sudden loss.
→ Get resources at Resources — The Flannel Project
👕West Wings: Restoring Dignity in Crisis
In locked mental health wards across Queensland, many patients arrive with nothing but the clothes on their backs. Some are admitted in moments of deep crisis, without time to pack. Others have belongings that are lost, damaged, or taken during emergency admissions. Too often, they’re left in hospital gowns, cold, exposed, and stripped of identity.
West Wings is our response.
We partner directly with hospital mental health teams to provide essential, plain clothing, t-shirts, underwear, trackpants, and warm layers so that patients can begin their healing journey with dignity.
Because when someone is at their lowest, even a simple act of compassion, like clean clothes can say: You matter. You are not forgotten.
West Wings currently supports the Princess Alexandra Hospital in Brisbane, with plans to expand across Queensland.
🔗 Learn more or donate at www.theflannelproject.com/westwings
🤝 Partnership Spotlight
Together with The Salvation Army, we’re standing shoulder to shoulder in postvention, walking alongside those left behind after veteran suicide.
This partnership isn’t just about services. It’s about heart. It’s about meeting survivors where they are, holding space in the darkest moments, and reminding them they are not alone.
🙌 A Note on the Heart Behind It All
The Flannel Project is still small, just a couple of us holding things together day to day, supported by a handful of generous volunteers who step in when they can. Everything we do is powered by purpose. It’s built from lived experience, love, and a fierce belief that no survivor should walk this path alone.
To those who helped bring Wear a Flan 4 Shan to life , thank you. You showed us what community really looks like.
Now, we’re ready to grow.
We’d love to welcome social media creatives, photographers, videographers, artists, gardeners, organisers, and creatives who believe in the healing power of art, nature, and connection.
We’re also calling in people with experience in project management, event coordination, fundraising, business development, or running charities, your skills could help take this movement further.
Come stand with us. There’s room for you here.
💸 Big News: We're Now Tax-Deductible!
The Flannel Project is officially a Deductible Gift Recipient (DGR). Every donation over $2 is tax-deductible, you'll get a receipt to claim at tax time.
This changes everything for our funding capacity. → Make a tax-deductible donation at Take Action — The Flannel Project
🌱 What’s Next at The Flannel Project?
The ripple is growing. What started with one flanno, one walk, and one friend’s heartbreak is now building into a national movement — one that’s changing how Australia honours its veterans and supports the ones left behind.
Here’s what’s ahead:
🗓 10th of Every Month:
10 Before 10 returns — 10,000 steps before 10am, $10 to support survivors.
Walk in honour. Give in purpose. Move for change.🎙 October 2025:
Launch of our survivor-led podcast, lifting the voices that too often go unheard.
Hosted by Courtney, this is raw, real, and necessary.🌸 2026/27:
The Flannel Flower Memorial Garden opens — a living, breathing space for remembrance, reflection, and education.🧡 June 21, 2026:
Wear a Flan 4 Shan returns for its third year, louder in silence and stronger in unity.
Every card we deliver, every name we honour, every step we walk, it’s all for those we’ve lost, and those still here.
Keep wearing your flannel with purpose.
We’re not done yet.
With hope and action,
El & The Flannel Project Team x
