The St. Albert branch of the Royal Canadian Legion is preparing for its biggest day of the year this Sunday, Nov. 11 and though legion executive members promise as always that it will be a day of remembrance, they wish people would think of the facility and use it at other times too.
Currently Legion Branch 271 has 660 members but only about 100 of them regularly use the facility on Taché Street.
“We have high membership and low usage,” said first-vice president Dave Frizell.
In September legion members voted to raise yearly membership fees by $5 per year. Now fees are $55 per year for members younger than 65 and $40 per year for seniors.
“Our average age means that most of our members are seniors and pay $40,” said Frizell, as he explained that all of those funds do not stay in St. Albert.
“The legion Dominion Command takes $32 and funds also go to support the provincial command. So of each $40 membership, all but five or six dollars goes out the door. That’s why we need more membership to make everything work,” he said.
None of the St. Albert executive members could outline exactly how the legion command’s funds are used, but believe most of the money is used to maintain federal and provincial offices and staff.
“I am not sure how Dominion Command disperses its funds. I do know that they have a newer building to maintain and employees to pay. They also produce the legion magazine for members. I believe they do make donations but do not know to who and how much,” said legion president Melody Grove.
Frizell, who has been an associate legion member since he first moved to St. Albert in the late 1970s, explained that finding the money to keep the facility viable requires balancing the organization’s mandated charitable role with the business side that keeps the doors open.
“Our legion mission is to support and serve the veterans and their families as well as to promote remembrance and to serve our communities. Last year this legion gave back approximately $50,000 to the community,” Grove explained.
That cash, which is raised by members working at casinos and through its own in-house raffles, supports several local organizations, including the Sturgeon Hospital Foundation, Chateau Mission Court, Youville Home and the Salvation Army. The legion also gives out scholarship bursaries to local youths.
Entirely separate from those charitable funds is the poppy fund, which amounted to $55,000 last year in St. Albert.
“That money is strictly governed and must be directed to the vets. It goes directly to the veterans or their dependents. It is administered by us but, depending upon the amount, is distributed by the legion’s national command in Ottawa,” Grove said.
Last year’s poppy fund cash assisted veterans of all ages in St. Albert, Grove said, stressing that for privacy reasons she could not outline specific details.
“We did assist some younger veterans from Afghanistan and older veterans as well. In most cases it was helping them with bills, such as when a car broke down and they had no money to fix it or if they needed help with rent,” she said.
“If we hear that a veteran is in difficulty we assist them. Nobody is left wanting,” said the legion’s second vice president Bob Fagan.
But this past spring, after repairs were needed on the roof of their 36-year-old building, legion members as a whole came with their collective hands outstretched asking for help from the City of St. Albert’s community capital grant program administered by the community services advisory board.
May 7 city council agreed to give the legion $53,333, which was needed to go towards some $160,000 in renovations, including roof repairs and upgrades to the parking lot.
The awarding of this grant caused questions to be raised at the city council meeting about whether the legion is a charity or a business, but Frizell says it must be both.
“We must support the community but we must also run the legion like a business,” he said as he recalled how the St. Albert legion was a hotspot of activity in the early years but nearly went bankrupt in the 1990s.
“Back in the early ’80s if you didn’t get here early on a Friday night, you didn’t get a seat. At that time, the legion was one of only four places in St. Albert where you could get a drink but as more options became available, by the 1990s, the legion faced a considerable debt and we were faced with closing the doors if we didn’t sell one third of the building to the Cornerstone Society,” he said.
Selling the northern portion of the building to the Cornerstone Society allowed the legion to pay off its mortgage, Frizell said, but the onus was on the legion members to try to attract people back through its doors.
“At one time you had to be buzzed in the front door by a member. We changed that to make it more visitor friendly,” he said, adding that membership rules were relaxed to allow associate members to join even if they have never served in the military.
The legion became available as a hall and was rented out for numerous community events. It also opened the doors to non-legion events such as weekly dart leagues and bridge and chess-playing groups.
Those changes became problematic because while they brought in funds, some members of the military perceived that the legion was no longer exclusively theirs. The age gap was also a problem because younger military members perceived the legion as an old-folks’ club.
“We’ve got to rekindle the flame and we’re trying new things. Last year we offered one-year free membership to veterans from Afghanistan. We got only one new member, but perhaps we’ll try it again at a different time of year,” said Fagan, who served in the military for 30 years.
Still, while just a handful of new, younger veterans joined the legion last year, five of the legion-member veterans who served in older conflicts passed on. Their deaths leave a hole that makes Remembrance Day even more poignant for Grove.
“Last year we still had about 30 Second World War and Korean War veterans, who marched in the parade. There will be fewer this year,” she said, as she pointed to the legion’s memorial plaques, where every deceased member’s name is listed.
“I believe so strongly in the legion and what it does for our veterans and for the community,” she said. “That’s why I’ve volunteered on the executive for so many years.”
“It’s not about us,” agreed Fagan. “It’s about the veterans we support.”
