Get a Poppy online: Royal Canadian Legion launches collaboration with Amazon

The 2024 Poppy Campaign Crystal Garrett speaks with the Royal Canadian Legion Nova Scotia and Nunavut Command about the annual poppy campaign.

Every year, the Royal Canadian Legion Poppy Campaign sees millions of Canadians wear a poppy to honour those who serve and those who have made the ultimate sacrifice.

The campaign always launches on the last Friday of October, with this year’s beginning on Oct. 25 and running until Nov 11.

Joanne Geddes, a district commander with the Nova Scotia/Nunavut Command of the Royal Canadian Legion, says this year’s campaign is great because it offers even more time to raise funds.

“The funds go to veterans, their families and communities,” she said during an interview on CTV Morning Live Atlantic. “We do a lot of transition veterans’ programs for transitioning into civilian life, things like service dogs for veterans, VetBuild which is where they do models, coffee breaks, buddy checks, all sorts of things like that. We have the veterans farm project here in Nova Scotia.”

The Royal Canadian Legion says close to $20 million is donated during the campaign each year. Geddes says in her branch alone they usually make around $90,000.

She adds it’s an important time for those who serve and have served.

“It’s just important so that people remember, they know the sacrifices made, they know still today, even though it’s not a world war or Korean War or anything, we still have conflicts all across the world and our people are called upon every day to do things that not everybody is willing to do,” she said.

Geddes served with the Army Navy and the Air Force for more than 35 years.

“I was administration and then later finance, so I got to go everywhere. And I served in Isreal for three years, I served with the 1 RCR in Petawawa at which time I got to deploy to Kosovo and I also went to Germany. I finished off my career in Germany for four years,” he said.

Geddes says she ended up retiring earlier than she planned due to an injury.

“So I immediately contacted the Legion and told them I thought I had some skillsets I could use and got involved with that very, very heavily,” she said.

This year, the Royal Canadian Legion began its inaugural collaboration with Amazon Canada. People can now buy poppies on the company’s online storefront as well as other merchandise.

“The poppies are available because one of the complaints that Dominion Command was getting is that there’s a lot of people that aren’t getting reached with the poppies in small, rural areas,” Geddes said. “Amazon keeps no money. They ship them out. If you’re donating for a poppy, you can donate two, five, 10, 20 dollars, and the merchandise will stay on, the poppy will come off after the campaign of course.”

Geddes said poppies with pins in the middle are still a very popular item.

“There’s nothing more disheartening than seeing poppies on the ground and being stepped on and rained on so this is great,” she said.

But when the campaign ends what are people supposed to do with their poppies? Geddes said there’s not a right or wrong way to handle them.

“We do put up wreaths at the back of the ceremony and a lot of people will go there, they’ll place their poppy on the wreath and take just a moment, some people wear them, some people keep them all year long,” she said. “We have many ceremonies throughout the year celebrating Dieppe or D-Day, Battle of Atlantic, Battle of Britain, all those, so people wear their poppies then as well.”

Aside from the Poppy Campaign, Geddes is also helping to organize the provincial service on Remembrance Day at Grand Parade in Halifax.

Geddes said they are happy to be back after last year’s ceremony moved to Dartmouth.

“HRM and CFB Halifax, all the military units are helping us out and supporting us and we’re really looking forward to having it this year. We’re having an elder coming in and doing a smudging ceremony,” she said.