ROCHELLE — A mighty red flower. The red poppy is small but the impact the VFW Buddy Poppy leaves on disabled and needy veterans is mighty.
Members of the Rochelle VFW Post will sell the small red poppy flowers on Saturday, May 27 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Veterans will be selling the cloth flowers at Wal-Mart and the intersection on Fourth Avenue and Lincoln Highway.
The red flower represents the blood of those who gave their lives serving. The black represents the mourning of those whoms loved ones didn’t return. The green leaf represents grass and crops growing and a prosperous future after the war destroyed so much. The leaf is positioned to represent the 11th hour of the 11th day during the 11th month when WWI formally ended.  

All money raised will be used locally. Veteran Guy Bayes explained monies from poppy sales must be saved in a relief fund to help veterans.
“The whole basis is it goes back to veterans in need,” stated Bayes. “We sell the poppies once a year around Memorial Day as a way to connect veterans to the holiday.”
In May 1992 the first poppy distribution was held prior to Memorial Day and soon after the poppy was adopted as the official memorial flower of the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States. The following year VFW Buddy Poppies were assembled by disabled and needy veterans who were paid for their work to provide them financial assistance. Today, the Buddy Poppies are still assembled by disabled and needy veterans in VA Hospitals. The cloth flowers are created in Leavenworth and Topeka, Kansas; Biloxi, Mississippi; Temple, Texas; Martinsburg, West Virginia; Hampton, Virginia; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Dayton, Ohio; and White City and Grand Rapids, Michigan.
According to the Veterans of Foreign Wars website, “The VFW Buddy Poppy program provides compensation to the veterans who assemble the poppies, provides financial assistance in maintaining state and national veterans’ rehabilitation and service programs and partially supports the VFW National Home For Children.”