'It was a big deal that people weren't wearing them': Veteran hands out poppies to strangers

Aaron Hutton takes his daughters to West Edmonton Mall nearly once a week. But a trip to the mall last Friday was different.

“I noticed right away,” Hutton said. “A lot of people weren’t wearing poppies and it was kind of, it was really shocking.”

The poppy is an important symbol for Hutton, who up until 2010 served as a member of the Royal Canadian Regiment based in New Brunswick.

“It’s for remembrance and it’s also for hope and future of the peace, and to me it was a big deal that people weren’t wearing them.

He walked up to a table where volunteers were offering poppies and collecting donations, asking how many he could get for $50.

“For me it wasn’t about the money it was just like -- it was the principle.”

He then started handing the poppies to anyone who walked by without one.

“To see that amount of people of all ages, anywhere from the age of 16 all the way up to 90, you just really realize that it’s become something that’s being forgotten."

He did have help from his two young daughters.

“I wanted my daughters to be involved,” he said. “They definitely recognize the day to the point where both of my daughters get a little bit emotional on it because they know how emotional I get.”

When their poppies ran out, Hutton went back to the volunteers for more.

“The one lady there, she started crying because I don’t think she’s ever seen anything like that. And then I gave another $50 bill and then another $50 dollar bill,” said Hutton.

“I think it’s amazing,” Ron Wills, treasurer of the Greater Edmonton Poppy Fund said when CTV News Edmonton told him what had happened.

“He did his service and now he wants people to know that this is a meaningful way of thanking the veterans.”

Wills said all money raised through the poppy campaign stays in Edmonton to help veterans in urgent need.

“We’re the emergency funding for them when they run into situations where they’re not getting looked after fast enough, say by Veteran Affairs or other organizations out there. That’s what we use the money for,” Wills said.

A poppy fund donation box on display November 9, 2022. (Joe Scarpelli/CTV News Edmonton)

Although they won’t know for another few days how successful this year’s fundraising campaign has been, Wills said they’re raising less and less in recent years.

“We noticed that there seems to be a drop in mail-ins and even online donations don’t seem to be as strong as they have in the past, which is really surprising because we have the digital code out now for people to use and we have tap boxes,” he added.

“It takes a small donation of five cents,” Hutton said.

“You could take a pop bottle to the recycle bin and have enough for a poppy, and the smallest symbol of gratitude means the world to a lot of people who’ve gone through that and sacrificed.”

Hutton and his daughters spent about a half an hour and $300 to make sure strangers had poppies that day at the mall.

“I could have sat there all day but the funds wouldn’t allow it,” he chuckled.

“I wanted to really empty my entire wallet because I knew the proceeds were going to a good cause that I support.”

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Joe Scarpelli