FARMINGTON — A  project that will place more than 300 flags on light poles throughout Farmington has begun with placement of flags on High Street, Farmington Falls Road and Fairbanks Road.

The Veterans Committee of the Farmington Elks Lodge No. 2430 decided to take on the job as a community project and a way to say thank-you to veterans, said Phil O’Brion, lodge secretary.

“We’re pretty patriotic,” he said.

When Veterans Committee chairman Vicki LaBree saw other towns putting up flags and realized Farmington wasn’t, she went to the lodge with the idea to put flags up prior to Memorial Day and take them down after Labor Day, Elks member Lynda Haskell said.

The project began last year with fundraising, a task that still continues, O’Brion said.

About $2,700 has been raised mostly through Elks members’ donations and club-sponsored programs and projects such as dances.

For a donation of $50, people can have a flag and plaque put on a pole in memory of someone, whether or not a veteran.

For Haskell, a flag remembering her father who died while working on a pole for Central Maine Power “seemed appropriate,” she said Monday.

Donations of other sizes have also helped provide this first batch of about 125 flags to start flying above Farmington streets within the last couple weeks.

The Committee received permission from the town to put the flags up. FairPoint is helping with the task at no charge to the lodge, O’Brion said.

The group is following flag etiquette by placing the flags on light poles to illuminate flags left out overnight, Haskell said.

The intent was to put the flags up by Memorial Day and take them down after Labor Day. Haskell expects they will now stay until after Veterans Day.

Attempts to reach LaBree were unsuccessful Monday.

O’Brion said she had done the majority of the work to bring the project to this point.  He expects the project will take another year to continue fundraising and install flags on most of the light poles throughout Farmington.

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