The Legion is building up its moving fund.
The local branch of the Royal Canadian Legion has crawled back from the brink of financial collapse to stand once again at attention by selling their oversized building. The purchasing group gave them a grace period in order to find a new location and build up the funds to move.
On Sept. 8, a gala dinner and auction will be held at the Civic Centre to raise money for the Legion's transition to a new location.
"Renovations have not started," said local president Bruce Gabriel. "We have a tentative agreement on a suitable place. We are cautiously very pleased with this location, we just have to do a few things to complete the contract and we can announce our new home."
In the meantime, money has to be raised to get them from Point A to Point B.
In addition to the fundraising dinner and auction, groups and organizations can also help by booking activities at the current Legion location. Those functions, large and small, pay the ongoing bills to keep the lights and water running.
"We've had a few bookings, and those really help," Gabriel said. "In the last couple of weeks we did a going away party, we had a wedding happen here, we are doing a birthday party, we have a corporate event with Telus coming up, and all these things add up to keep us alive for the community benefits we provide. We aren't a fancy building but we have a lot of services, a lot of different kinds of spaces, we can cater, we can decorate, and it fits a lot of budgets."
The Legion has never stopped the flow of charity dollars it collects and funnels to deserving causes around the community, not the least of which is support of the elderly and military veterans young and old. This money comes in through the sale of their poppies in November and the grants they have earned from B.C. Gaming. None of those funds could be touched for their own operations since it was all contractually earmarked for community causes.
Gabriel said it has given Legion members in Prince George a lot of pride to keep up that community involvement even while their own bank accounts were in red but now both sides of the Legion ledger are back in the black as long as those event bookings can continue and the Civic Centre gala does well.
So far the live and silent auction items include airline tickets, helicopter rides, local vacations, art, meals, retail items and more coming in every day.
The live auction will be conducted by Brock McElroy, who can also be contacted (250-963-9497) for donating new items and purchasing tickets. Tickets are also available from Gabriel (250-964-1822), the Legion, and at Books and Company. Individual seats are $70 or tables of 10 for $600.
