CFUW Guelph dedicated our millennium project, The Reflection Garden, on August 16, 2000, as part of the ceremonies of CFUW’s national Annual General Meeting, held that year in Guelph. This Reflection Garden is a physical symbol of our opposition to violence, and is dedicated to the fourteen engineering students who lost their lives in a tragic and unforgettable act of violence against women at the Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal in December 1989.
The Garden, designed by Guelph landscape architect Wendy Shearer, consists of two large, slightly curved wrought iron screens made up of seven flower stems each. The buds on the top of the stems symbolize the lives of the 14 women, who were about to bloom. The buds will never open, just as the fourteen young women were never able to develop to their full potential. The Reflection Garden is located in Guelph at the confluence of the Speed and Eramosa Rivers and will provide an area where one can reflect on many things, including the significant losses to our community which are caused by violence.