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UGA's "The Poppy Project" Raising Funds to Support Veterans

moinamichaelpoppyproject.com

This Saturday is Veterans Day and a group of volunteers from the University of Georgia is helping honor the nation’s vets by donning a poppy.

Members of UGA’s “The Poppy Project” are honoring the nation’s veterans by wearing and selling poppies. The flowers became the symbol of the effort in the 1920s thanks to UGA Professor Moina Belle Michael, affectionately known as “The Poppy Lady.”  Volunteers like Marie Mize are carrying on the tradition today. The UGA group is hoping to buy an all-terrain wheelchair for a veteran with proceeds from their poppy sales.

“Each year the American Legion and the VFW, the Veterans of Foreign War, they sell poppies and the poppies that they sell are actually made by disabled veterans,” according to Mize. “Some of the proceeds goes back to the individuals actually making the poppies and the rest goes back to programs for veterans.”

Poppies are also worn in the UK, Australia, Canada and News Zealand.

For more information or to make poppies or donate, visit : www.moinamichaelpoppyproject.com.

Adjusted for inflation, poppy sales raised billions of dollars worldwide during Michael’s lifetime  

The American Legion designated the poppy its official flower in 1920. Poppies have been worn in remembrance in the UK, Australia, and Canada since 1921 and New Zealand since 1922.