Remembrance Day Poppies

Girl Guides from Ballarat accepted the opportunity to help the Sebastopol RSL members to sell poppies and collect donations outside the local supermarket.

The Returned Service League of Australia have been selling poppies across the country in the lead up to each Remembrance Day since 1921. The funds are used for the organisation’s valuable welfare work to help those affected by the war – particularly widows, orphans, veterans and their families.

As explained by RSL Victoria, a red poppy is used as a symbol of commemoration to soldiers who have fallen in times of war.  During World War 1, poppies were identified as one of the first plants to blossom on the devastated battlefields of northern France and Belgium, which had become the grave to thousands of soldiers. It is said that the vivid redness resulted from the blood of the soldiers soaking the ground and therefore represents the sacrifice of life and the bloodshed of trench warfare.

Poppy’s have became widely accepted throughout the allied nations as a symbol of remembrance.

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