Simsbury VFW Poppy Drive Begins Friday

Courtesy of VFW

SIMSBURY, CT — One week before Memorial Day weekend, a prominent local veterans organization is hosting its traditional fundraising campaign to benefit military veterans.

The Metacomet Post 1926, Veterans of Foreign Wars, Simsbury, will commemorate
Memorial Day with a buddy poppy drive outside Fitzgerald’s Foods, 710 Hopmeadow St.,
Simsbury, on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, May 19, 20 and 21.

It will take place from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. all three days.

Proceeds will benefit veterans in need and programs that assist veterans in the Farmington Valley.

The familiar red cloth poppy, normally worn in the lapel, is a symbol from WWI memorialized in
a poem written in 1915 by John McCrae about Flanders Field, Belgium.

That's where American soldiers were engaged in battle in the fields of poppies that grew there.

Historically, the VFW conducted its first buddy poppy distribution before Memorial Day in 1922, becoming the first veterans organization to organize a nationwide distribution.

The buddy poppy soon was adopted as the official memorial flower of the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States.

Military veterans of the Simsbury Post will be distributing poppies and welcome local veterans to stop by and say hello.

To make a mail in donation, checks can be made out to Simsbury VFW Post 1926 and mailed
to: Simsbury VFW Post 1926, P.O. Box 211, Simsbury, CT 06070. Please note “Poppy Drive” on the
memo line of the check.

For more information about the Metacomet VFW Post 1926, visit this link.