Tag Archives: armistace day

Kitten with her Official 2011 Poppy Appeal Poppy

I have just payed my respects in the 2 minute silence to those who have fought or fallen in the World Wars and more recent battles. Wearing the poppy I bought from a charity volunteer of the Poppy Appeal, as I have done since I was 6 years old, I wear the symbol on my lapel to show that I care and that I have donated money to a good cause.

So why am I sitting here stewing? Having just been on Etsy and seen this…

Etsy's home page today

Sellers cashing in on Remembrance Day poppies without giving anything to charity.

And don’t get me started on the celebrity favourite Kleshna who have created brooches costing £50-60 ‘For the Poppy Appeal’, yet only give 10% to the charity?!?!  If this isn’t cashing in I don’t know what is!

So you are enticed to buy one of these brooches (and fair enough, some I have seen are beautiful) and encouraged to wear it again each year. So they’ll still buy a charity poppy next year? Sure they won’t. They spent £50 on a brooch last year.

Ok, so Poppy Appeal may have gotten £5 out of the sale, but they will lose sales of poppies in coming years after this type of extravagence. It doesn’t take much to dip into your purse each year and buy a £1 poppy from someone who is volunteering their time to stand out in the cold to raise money for this amazing cause. Why then give that money to greedy jewellers instead?

So please people, even if you decide to stick rhinestones on your poppies each year or do as I did as a kid…buy lots of poppies and put all the red petals together on 1 stem, put vanity aside for just 2 days (11th November and Remembrance Sunday) and remember what these little paper poppies stand for and what they raise for charity.