Royal Canadian Legion Branch 164 (Powell River) has a Poppy Committee which consists of a poppy chairman and a secretary/treasurer who look after the Poppy Trust Account throughout the year. We are there for the veterans, widows or widowers and dependents of veterans who may be in need of assistance during the year for such things as walkers, wheelchairs and dentures, to name a few.
Our committee applies for grants-in-aid for the Remembrance Day parade and service, usually in March each year. We have to order poppies, wreaths and promotional materials for the upcoming campaign by the end of August. We cannot offer poppies to the community before the last Friday of October or after November 11 each year.
We purchase 11,000 to 12,000 lapel poppies each year and we put 60 trays of poppies with tins in businesses from Lund to Saltery Bay. We do our poppy tagging on the first Friday and Saturday in November and are usually stationed at various spots in Town Centre Mall, Save-On-Foods, Quality Foods and FreshCo. The cadets also have spots on the Saturday.
Our poppy committee grows by six members in October as we need people to deliver the poppy trays and tins to the businesses on the last Friday of the October and monitor these for the two weeks they are out. We have members looking after the various services that are held at the schools and our local care facilities: Willingdon Creek, Kiwanis Manor and ECU prior to November 11. Members are needed to help with the parade, the service at Dwight Hall and the ceremony at the Cenotaph in Veteran’s Memorial Park in Townsite and wreath laying all on November 11.
We usually bring in approximately $18,000 over the two weeks of our poppy campaign and various donations received from our community. This money stays in Powell River with the exception of a poppy assessment, which goes to our BC/Yukon Command each year. The rest of the money goes to the cost of poppies, wreaths and promotional materials, assistance to veterans, bursaries to local graduating students and campaign expenses.
We have a poster/literary contest which takes place each poppy campaign where information is sent to the schools so the students can submit black and white posters, colour posters, poems and essays about Remembrance Day. The posters are submitted for primary, junior, intermediate and senior categories. Poems and essays have junior, intermediate and senior categories.
All entries must be submitted to our Legion by November 15. These entries are all judged and the first place winners go on to our zone level for judging by December 15. The first place winners go on to the Provincial Command level and the first place winners at this level will go on the Dominion Command. We have had some young people win at all these levels and it is amazing what these winners receive for their entries.
It should be noted that since there are very few World War II veterans remaining, we are embracing our younger “new” veterans, who are in need of support within our community. Residents will notice a lot of vehicles around town that have veteran plates on them. I am sure a lot of them are not Legion members and that is entirely their choice. It would be great if these people know that we help veterans in a lot of ways and they do not need to join the Legion in order to receive assistance from our Poppy Trust Fund.
For anyone with questions, we do have a service office that is very helpful. Call the Legion at 604.485.4870 between 10 am and 2 pm Monday to Friday to enquire. We also do dinners for veterans in conjunction with our candlelight tribute, usually held in May. These veterans can come to this dinner free but would need to sign up at the Legion (6811 Alexander Street).
Karen Crashley is secretary/treasurer of the Royal Canadian Legion Branch 164 (Powell River) Poppy Committee.
