The Diamond Valley Legion has received a major boost from its Ladies Auxilliary.
As Legion Branch 78 of the Royal Canadian Legion is on the cusp of making its final repayments on the $40,000 of the Canada Emergency Business Account (CEBA) loans to get the final $20,000 forgiven, the ladies helped see that through with a cheque for $4,000 presented on Dec. 13.
“We have been fundraising hard all year, as we always do,” said Ladies Auxiliary president Judy Cheesman. “We knew the branch was faced with their corporate debt and we wanted to help them in any way way we could.
“We gave them $3,000 earlier in the year, just to help speed things along, and today we gave them the $4,000.”
Those funds come from the various events the ladies run out of the Legion and in the community.
“We have some regular fundraisers we do on a weekly basis, we have dessert raffles twice a month and meat draws or 50/50s in conjunction with our wing nights here at the branch every Thursday,” Cheesman explained. “We also just finished having a huge Christmas market, which is on about year 15.
“People are so supportive of us; they just want to come in and help support us and support the Legion.”
They also provide catering for events in the community, such as memorials or company dinners.
Paul Barton, president of the Legion Branch 78, pointed to the importance of these and other regular business activities of the Legion to remain functioning.
“It doesn’t take away from the charter of the Legion, which is service to veterans and veterans’ families, but the Legion needs two things: become part of the community, but also to be run as a business,” Barton said.
“This is the only place that openly invites families and we have the facilities to look after 170 people, which we’ve done. We just had Breakfast with Santa Claus, which seated 75 children, but they brought their parents, their aunts, their grannies and everyone else so this place was packed.
“The days of waiting for businesses to hand out big cheques, those days disappeared 15 years ago, and so you have to go out," he said.
Once word got out about their time of need, however, many came through.
“Thankfully the treasurer put this message out to the community about the CEBA loan and everybody came out of the woodwork, and you suddenly realize who your friends are and just how high both the Legion and Ladies Auxiliary are held in the community," Barton said.
For their part, Cheesman is pleased to have helped keep the doors open on the Legion as it goes into its 95th anniversary year.
“We’re very, very proud of our small little hard-working group of ladies,” Cheesman said.
