Keep an eye out for taggers and donation boxes throughout the community as South Delta’s Royal Canadian Legion Branches launch their annual poppy campaigns on Friday (Oct. 28), leading up to Remembrance Day (Nov. 11).
“The Tsawwassen Branch 289 of the Legion has conducted the annual poppy campaign in our area since 1994, and the local population and businesses have been consistently generous with donations to our Poppy Trust Fund,” said Legion president Ken Harvey. “This fund is used to assist veterans or their dependents in need; programs to assist veterans; bursaries for veterans’ family members who need financial assistance for further education
“It provides prizes for our annual poster, literary and video school contests. We have also donated money for equipment to local care homes which have veterans as residents, and to our local hospital foundation.”
Meanwhile, Gerry Bramhill has coordinated the Ladner Royal Canadian Legion Branch 61’s poppy campaign for a number of years. He works with about 14 dedicated volunteers that help set-up the poppy trays and for businesses throughout the community, as well as schools. More than 40,000 poppies are distributed each year.
“We have somewhere around 200 or so store fronts where we leave poppy trays in. Then we have the cadet squadrons were they will be doing tagging at various locations on the weekends and Friday nights,” explained Bramhill. “We also have people who sign-up to be taggers and they are the best. We have some folks that take a two-hour shift every day and they never miss one.
“We do everything possible to check with the managers to make sure we are not impeding on any areas where their stores might be very busy or if they don’t like taggers right at the front entrance.”
Bramhill added that all proceeds from the Ladner poppy campaign goes into a special trust fund that sees thousands of dollars distributed throughout the community.
Wearing a poppy during the Remembrance period honours Canada’s fallen soldiers and veterans, and both legions are encouraging everyone to wear a poppy to remember and pay respect to veterans still with us today, he said.
