REMEMBRANCE Day poppies will be distributed for free in Albury after NSW RSL head office banned fundraising due to corruption woes.
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The Albury sub-branch normally raises $3000 to $4000 through selling the replica poppies for $2 each on the eve of November 11.
The sub-branch’s president Mark Dando said RSL superiors originally issued a directive last month stating there would no poppy sales because of an ongoing probe into financial mismanagement.
But he urged NSW president James Brown, who was elected at the state conference in Albury in May, to still allow poppies to be given away.
“The sad part of it is that it’s a major fundraiser and that funding goes towards looking after veterans, so it’s sad that won’t happen because of people in Sydney doing the wrong thing,” Mr Dando said.
“But we’ve got some school students that will be coming around with the poppies and doing the normal thing we do, but they won’t be selling them.”
The youngsters will carry the poppies throughout Albury’s CBD from 10.30am on Friday.
“I imagine we’ll give away a couple of thousand poppies,” Mr Dando said.
“It is a traditional thing, our forebears paid with their lives and the day we stop remembering them we’ve got a real problem.”
Previous NSW RSL president Don Rowe admitted he had misused the charity’s money in evidence given to an inquiry overseen by former NSW Supreme Court justice Patricia Bergin in September.
While the Bergin inquiry proceeds, the state RSL has suspended fundraising activties, such as poppy sales.
“Unfortunately we had some people that had their snouts in the trough and money raised to look after our veterans was misued,” Mr Dando said.
In Wodonga, poppies and associated badges have been on sale at the city’s shopping centres since the beginning of last week.
Wodonga RSL sub-branch Kevyn Williams said it was anticipated $40,000 would be raised.
“All the money we collect from Remembrance Day, we submit all that to headquarters and we get 50 per cent back and the 50 per cent we get back goes to the welfare of veterans,” Mr Williams said.
“Our welfare team of 22 people do home and hospital visits.”
Wodonga’s Remembrance Day ceremony will commence at 10.40am on Saturday at the Woodland Grove cenotaph with a lunch at the RSL sub-branch to follow.
A service in Albury will start at 10.30am at St Matthew’s Anglican Church with wreathes laid afterwards at the cenotaph in QEII Square.
