Legion Branch 225 Poppy Chair Tim Trottier (left) and President Karen King (right) present a $10,000 donation to Ann Elizabeth, Philanthropy Officer at the Health Sciences North Foundation (centre), on January 8. 
On December 3rd, the Legion Ladies’ Auxiliary provided the Sturgeon Falls Legion Branch 225 with a $5,000 donation for emergency repairs to their furnace. Ladies Auxiliary President Mona Noël (left) and Secretary/Treasurer Sylvie Perron Bidal presented a cheque to branch 225 President Karen King (centre).
Christian Gammon-Roy
Tribune
The Sturgeon Falls Legion Branch 225 has been quite busy since November’s Poppy campaign. According to branch president Karen King, over $35,000 has been disbursed from the Poppy Fund coffers, all to different veteran-focused initiatives and organisations. Meanwhile, the local branch has also received hefty donations of their own. Notably, an emergency $5,000 was provided for furnace repairs, courtesy of the Ladies’ Auxiliary. All the while, King is pleased to note that things continue to boom in terms of activities and attendance, all of which is helping to keep the branch thriving.
“We do regular fall maintenance every year, and they found that our air exchanger was totally seized. There was no air running through the building, and the furnace actually had a crack in it. Therefore, they tagged it and gave us 45 days to replace it. So, I went to the Ladies’ Auxiliary to see if they could make an emergency donation for 50% of the cost,” recounts King. With the building divided into separate parts built at different times, she says the HVAC work completed roughly 3 years ago didn’t include this part of the duct work, which was quite old and due for an upgrade. “These furnaces are high efficiency, so it should help with our heating costs, too,” she adds.
The remaining cost for the furnace work was pulled from funds collected through the Legion’s other activities, events and hall rentals. As King reminds people, Poppy Funds are not for Legion operations. “They are very strict” on that, she explains.
King is pleased to say that those events have been going extremely well lately, and the Legion has seen unprecedented activity. “Attendance has been outstanding. We have been picking up and doing a lot. We had a very busy December with rentals as well as regular events. In January we had our normal Friday dinners and Sunday jams, we also had a big rental for a birthday,” she describes, adding that there is plenty more to come. “We’re trying to do one Legion function per month upstairs, over and above what we usually do, and we have to work those around hall rentals,” she states, mentioning that they still run their pool leagues, regular euchre games, shuffleboard and monthly cribbage tournaments.
