The 2024 Poppy Campaign officially started in The Blue Mountains on the afternoon of Oct. 25.
Royal Canadian Legion Branch 281 President Eobhann Bruce welcomed visitors and guests to the branch in Clarksburg to formally kick off the annual poppy campaign.
Bruce presented The Blue Mountains Mayor Andrea Matrosovs with the official first poppy of the campaign. Legion member Shawn McKinlay was on hand to present The Blue Mountains Public Library CEO Jennifer Murley with a poppy as well.
The campaign runs from the last Friday of October to November 11.
All donations raised during the campaign are used to support programs across the county to assist veterans and their families.
In 1921 Anna Guerin from France imagined the idea of the Remembrance Poppy after being inspired by John McCrae’s poem “In Flanders Fields.”
The Great War Veterans Association, the precursor to the legion, adopted the idea in 1921.
Legion members across the country will be out at a variety of locations with the familiar poppy boxes until Remembrance Day on Nov. 11. The poppy is distributed freely to all who wish to wear one, and the legion gratefully accepts donations to the Poppy Fund.
