Local Veteran Invites All to Participate in Buddy Poppy Program

VFW JUNIOR VICE COMMANDER’S CORNER, POST 6024, By John L. Carson

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE BUDDY POPPY

Veterans of Foreign Wars Posts across the nation support disabled or aged Veterans in need by providing financial aid or support.

VFW Posts also donate financing to other patriotic organizations or courses. VFW Posts collect dues each year from members which helps to run the posts. Most VFW posts do not raise enough in membership dues to operate the posts and support the funding necessary to cover the veterans causes posts support. Veterans Day was originally called Armistice Day.

The Allied powers signed a ceasefire agreement with Germany at Rethondes, France, at 11:00 a.m. on November 11, 1918. In 1954, President Dwight D. Eisenhower officially changed the name of the holiday from Armistice Day to Veterans Day to honor all veterans of American wars.

The VFW since 1922 has raised operating funds by receiving donations through the Buddy Poppy Campaigns. The Buddy Poppy® has been an integral part of the VFW community. Red Buddy Poppies initially symbolized the blood shed by allied shoulders during WWI. The Poppy movement was inspired by the poem “In Flanders’s Fields” written by Canadian Army Colonel John McCrae while serving in the medical corps in Belgium at Flanders Fields. Veterans day is celebrated in France, The United States of America and all the British Empire.

At first the VFW shipped Poppies in from France and Belgium, but found it took too long to get them to the United States in good condition. That’s when the V.A. hospitals started making paper poppies in the United States. The paper flowers the post’s veterans hand out are hand made by disabled and aging veterans in six U.S., V.A. Veteran’s Hospitals.

The VFW pays the disabled and aged veterans for their work. In most cases, this extra money provides additional income for the worker to pay for the little luxuries, which makes life more tolerable. Furthermore, Poppy assembly is often used as a therapy program to provide exercise for fingers and hands crippled by wounds, disease and the effects of old age. Buddy Poppies® have never been sold, rather given freely to people. It is made known, that voluntary donations go to support United States Veterans.

Another reason Poppies are so important is because all proceeds from distribution are used for veteran’s welfare or for the well-being of their needy dependents and the orphans of veterans.

More than 2,300 children of veterans have been or are being cared for in the VFW National Home in Eaton Rapids, Michigan, thanks to a portion of Poppy funds.

John L. Carson
Mission Viejo, VFW Post 6024 Junior Vice Commander
https://vfwpost6024.mytroop.us/

TO ORDER YOUR BUDDY POPPY’S, PLEASE CONTACT JOHN L. CARSON AT THE MV VFW’S WEBSITE LISTED ABOVE!