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Royal Canadian Legion launches digital poppy

Oct 26, 2018 | 5:00 PM

Each year, red poppies bloom on the collars of millions of Canadians to honour those who put everything on the line for our freedom.

In a first for Remembrance Day, the Royal Canadian Legion has launched a shareable, digital poppy to complement the traditional lapel version, as a new age symbol of Canada’s remembrance.

Canadians will be able to customize, personalize, dedicate, download and share their digital Poppy at mypoppy.ca. The digital and lapel versions will be available starting Oct. 26 until Nov. 11. All donations made online will go toward a local poppy fund, which in turn finds its way to assist veterans.

“In an increasingly cashless society, we wanted to give people another way to support their veterans,” Danny Martin, deputy director of The Royal Canadian Legion, said. “The legion’s new digital Poppy campaign will allow people to donate online and share their remembrance in a meaningful, personalized manner.”

Once downloaded, the digital poppy can be posted on social media. The campaign is designed to reach younger audiences and is a modernized funding source for the Legion’s Poppy Fund.

Marilyn Clark, president of Legion Branch #70 in North Battleford, said the digital poppy will enable legions across the nation to better reach those of a younger generation.

“It is also to get out to people who may not have someone selling poppies in their town,” she said. “And, to be honest, the legion is running out of volunteers.”

She added how the modern approach to remembrance will allow the legion an opportunity to target and teach a new swath of individuals about the importance of Nov. 11.

Clark believes the customizability of the digital poppy will bring a heightened personal sense of remembrance as well.

“For example, if you have a grandfather that served or someone who served more recently in Afghanistan, you can personally go into the digital poppy, write a tribute to them and share it,” she said. “I think that is just wonderful.”

Further to the introduction of the digital poppy, as 2018 marks 100 years since the signing of the Armistice of Compiègne — which in essence ended World War I  — when the sun sets on Nov. 11 this year, bells will ring in communities across the country to mark the occasion and replicate what took place in 1918 after four years of war. Plans are being made in the Battlefords to have churches bells tolled 100 times in five-second intervals.

Of focus for the Royal Canadian Legion this year is those involved in The Great War. In our region, one of those being remembered will be Alex Decoteau, who was born on Nov. 19, 1887, on the Red Pheasant First Nation, and killed at Passchendaele. He was an Olympian and Canada’s first Indigenous police officer.

Some 619,636 Canadians enlisted during the war. Nearly 66,000 were killed, while another 172,000 were injured from a country of just eight million at the time.

 

tyler.marr@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @JournoMarr