Buddy Poppies™: Planting the Seeds of Service

Wow, time is flying by! Here it is already the beginning of September!! I hope the kiddos had a great first day of school. I

can hear the collective sigh of relief from all the moms and dads as you read this! You made it! You survived another long, hot summer. Congratulations!

Now it’s time to start thinking about all the fundraisers, and school functions, parent-teacher conferences, sports games, etc. I can’t think of a better way to educate our communities about the importance of the Buddy Poppy than to get some time in front of these precious kiddos and start teaching them! Maybe library time, a football game, or if you think on a larger scale, maybe a school assembly. November is coming at us like a freight train rolling hot, and November brings us the Veterans Day programs. Maybe your school will give you 5-10 minutes of their time. Make a fun, but informative presentation. Maybe even throw in some flag etiquette, or some historical

trivia. Make it fun and engaging. The kids are our future. If we get them excited about serving now, they are more inclined to serve when

they are older. We need to teach them at a young age that it’s awesome to Serve America’s Heroes! It takes the Power of One to get that

ball rolling in the right direction!

Before we get to November, Fall Fest will be here. We will all gather in Norman for a fun weekend of fellowship and excitement, while we handle the business of the Auxiliary. The most important time of the weekend is obviously Saturday morning, around 8am, when we get to see all the beautiful Buddy Poppy displays!! Have you started yours yet? If you haven’t, don’t fret! There is still time to produce a beautiful masterpiece! But you better hurry and get started! Don’t forget the three categories you can enter. They are:

-Memorial

-Buddy Poppy promotion

-Artistic/decorative

You can enter just one category, or you can enter separate projects for all 3 categories! Theres no limit!! And I would love nothing better than to have to tell the staff at the hotel that I need more tables in our room because I don’t have enough room to display all the projects!

I also want to remind you to keep track of any hours, mileage, and money you spend as you go about your Buddy Poppy cam-paigns! Every bit of that is reportable hours! I know you guys are out there doing the work, so please don’t forget to tell me about it! You can email me, text me, snail mail me, put it on the Department page and tag me, post it on your Facebook page and tag me, call me, send smoke signals, send a courier pigeon, just whatever it takes to get that report to me!! Let’s not get to the end of the year and find out the hard way that your reports never made it to me! I have only received 1 report so far, so please don’t forget that I want to hear from you too!

I know you are busy, so I won’t keep you. I can’t wait to see you next month at Fall Fest!