Like so many other organizations, The Royal Canadian Legion is looking ahead to how it will have to make adjustments to its programs and events as Remembrance Day approaches.

Changes this year will include electronic payment options for the poppy campaign.

You won’t see vets selling poppies at donation tables, however poppy boxes will be set up and accepting coin donations at approximately 25,000 locations in Canada.

Also the RCL will be selling non-medical masks as a fundraiser to support the legion.

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The Royal Canadian Legion is coming back, one branch at a time! . (Story originally in the Winnipeg Free Press. Photos by Mikaela MacKenzie / Winnipeg Free Press) . On Tuesday afternoon, Naomi Vermette unlocked the back door of Legion Branch No. 252 (Winnipeg South Osborne) to allow customers inside for the first time since March 19. Vermette manages this Legion on Osborne Street, a few blocks south of Confusion Corner. She says the opening is the first real branch event since they organized a drive-by birthday celebration in the parking lot on May 25 for legion member James Deschamps, who died eight days later. . The Legion’s beverage room seating capacity is usually 150, but because of COVID-19 restrictions, that is halved to 75. The branch’s assortment of VLTs are unplugged and dark, lined up along one wall. But the Legion staff stands ready, including Daunica Picard, who handles entertainment booking for the branch, one of 1,350 across Canada. . Before COVID-19 closed their location, Picard was doing her best to get a younger clientele into the branch. By booking the right bands, she says she was succeeding in attracting a crowd that was left with fewer options when Toad in the Hole closed in Osborne Village last year. “Normally we go with a 50- to 60-year-old group, but now we’re starting to get 20- and 30-year olds in here.” . “Hopefully it’ll all come back together,” she says of the branch she affectionately refers to as “S.O.L.” “We have to support our Legion and we have to support our musicians in the city because they have really taken a hit here,” Picard says. Many of the Legion branches do primarily serve an older clientele, which is one reason they’re opening cautiously, with each branch seemingly considering how to do it right, employing the cleaning and distancing protocols required by the government. . The Henderson Highway Legion No. 215 is scheduled to open June 15. The Duke of Kent branch in Winnipeg’s Exchange District will likely open June 17. . Like any other business, legion branches are at risk of folding if they can’t operate their usual business.

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And on Remembrance Day the national ceremony will go ahead as planned on November 11th, but for the first time ever, spectators will be discouraged from attending.

 

(source: The Canadian Press)

Filed under: masks, Poppy Campaign, remembrance-day, Royal Canadian Legion