A craft fair in Okotoks over the weekend raised funds for the local Legion.
Royal Canadian Legion Branch 291, the Okotoks Legion, hosted its second-ever craft fair on Saturday, April 20. Over 35 vendors set up shop at the Foothills Centennial Centre, with all table fees going forwards the Legion's fundraising for a much-needed building to call their own.
"We do not have a building," said Legion secretary Mandie Barker. "We currently meet out of the Elks Hall, and we have been for the last 10 years trying to figure out how to get a building of our own. It's not an ideal scenario.
"We need a place, we need a home of our own. It's important that we have a building where people who have operational stress injuries have a place to go where they are in their own environment with their own kind."
As the Okotoks Legion is relatively new, it did not receive a building through a donation as many other branches did.
"Traditionally, Legion buildings were given to the Legions when the men came back from the war," said Barker. "A lot of Legions have been around since [the Second World War] and are actually in buildings that were donated by the towns back in those days.
"Obviously, we're in a whole different world in 2024 and we don't have the ability to just have a free building handed to us."
Barker emphasized the importance of the Legion getting a building for its veteran members.
"We have a membership of just short of 200, about 190," she said, adding that over 50 per cent of its members are veterans of recent conflicts such as the Cold War, Afghanistan, Bosnia and Iraq.
"Consequently, the operational stress injuries are very different, and the therapy that is needed is very different and often for a veteran, walking in the door of a Legion can be its own therapy, because with the banter and the behaviour and the recognizable environment, you become less stressed by being in a place that you recognize."
Learn more about the Okotoks Legion on its website.
