Six Woodbury and Oakdale grocery, wine and hypermarket spots will be aglow with bright-red poppy pins this weekend as local veterans groups mark their semiannual commemoration of U.S. soldiers.
Local members of American Legion Post 501 and VFW Post 9024 will be at poppy stands from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the following sites Sept. 12-14: Cub Foods, 8432 Tamarack Village; Jerry’s Grocery, 7760 Hargis Pkwy.; Total Wine, 7150 Valley Creek Plaza; Sam’s Club, 9925 Hudson Rd.; Walmart, 10240 Hudson Rd.; and Hy-Vee, 7180 10th St N, Oakdale.
Poppy Days, begun shortly after World War I, is the primary revenue generator for the local VFW and American Legion groups, supporting everything from high school scholarships and American Legion Baseball to Woodbury charities that promote veterans’ care.
Post 501 Commander Bob Dolan estimated annual local Poppy Days proceeds at about $20,000, shared between the two groups.
“The people here in Woodbury have been extremely generous over the years,” he said in a weekend telephone interview.
The red poppy is a nationally recognized symbol of sacrifice worn by Americans since World War I to honor those who served and died for our country.
The poppy became the official flower of The American Legion in September 1920, and in 1924, the distribution of poppies became a national program for the organization.
The flower as a symbol of fallen heroes was first popularized in the 1915 poem, “In Flanders Fields,” by World War I Canadian battlefield surgeon Lt. Col. John McCrae, who spotted a springtime cluster of poppies nearby shortly after the Second Battle of Ypres.
The poem channels the voices of lost soldiers buried under that poppy cluster, including Lt. Alexis Helmer, a close friend of McCrae’s.
McCrae died three years later of pneumonia and meningitis.
