The first Geranium Day collection took place in 1922, since then thousands of people from all walks of life have collected on the streets of London. This year we are celebrating our 90th Geranium Day, and we need you to join in the fun.
Counting funds raised on Geranium DayFrom the very beginning Geranium Day collections fully involved the blind and visually impaired people they were supporting; the thousands of Geraniums sold were made by blind and visually impaired people in our workshops.
The Geranium, chosen as a symbol of consolation, became a reminder for Londoners of the trials that the blind and visually impaired people of London face daily and the collections became a chance for Londoners to show their support.
Even during the War, when Londoners were struggling, they still dug deep and made every collection throughout the War Years a record year, hitting £25,000 in 1945 - this is the equivalent of close to a million pounds today! Every year we launched the annual collections at Downing Street, and so many of our friends took to the streets to help us out.
We recently raided the GLFB archives, and you can see some of the photos we found below…
