Hello Brothers and Sisters of the VFW Auxiliary,

Life Membership to the VFW National Home is going to go up December 31, 2025 from $50.00 to $100.00. Get your applications into them now before the price goes up. I am going to do a little contest. If you or your Auxiliary purchases a Life Membership to the National Home by April 5, 2026, report it and the person or Auxiliary that recruits the most members will win $25.00. You must send me an email with the recruiter’s name, address and who they recruited. You do not have to be an auxiliary member to be able to be a Life Member to the VFW National Home.

My ambassador has shared some ideas for those that are new to setting up a Buddy Poppy drive for their Auxiliary.

Choose a date, can be anytime of the year and not just Memorial Day or Veterans Day. It can be anytime you set up a table to recruit members, or any other time you are having an informational event.

Choose a suitable location, one with a lot of foot traffic like a store or Post Office.

Get permission from the manager, owner, or corporation before finalizing everything as you do not want to have members show up to do the drive and be told that they are not permitted to be there.

Put all your auxiliary programs on your tables if you are allowed to. Some places, we can put Poppys out but not membership information.

Wear something that says that you are a VFWA member. A blue shirt, jacket with VFWA, your Post jacket, name tag.

We do NOT SELL Buddy Poppys; we are handing them out with a hope for a donation. If you have a youth group that you work with, see if they can help you,

You must order your Buddy Poppys from the Post or Department. They prefer that it is from your Post, and we should be working together.

Hand out information about the Buddy Poppy. Did you know that when you pay for your Poppys that one cent goes to the VFW National Home, one cent goes to the National Service Fund and 1 ½ cent goes to Department Veterans Service Fund

All the funds from the donations that you receive goes to the relief fund to be able to help Veterans and their Families. You can also make donations to the different programs that we have, as well as VFW National Home Health and Happiness.

If anyone has any ideas on how to set up Buddy Poppy distributions and other fundraisers for the VFW National Home, please reach out to me with your ideas and I will pass them on to the other members.

Have a great fall and please be safe.