‘It’s about veterans’: New faces help keep Salisbury, N.B., legion open

The Salisbury Legion almost closed its doors, but a group of volunteers have kept that from happening.

From on the verge of closing to now thriving, the Royal Canadian Legion Branch 31 in Salisbury, N.B. has turned things around.

The legion put a call out for more volunteers last spring, something desperately needed for any not-for-profit to survive, but didn’t get the response it had hoped for.

Then, in August, 14 people stood up and recognized how important the legion was to the community and formed a new administration.

“Yeah, it was right on that verge or that precipice of [closing] and it could have gone either way,” said Salisbury Mayor Rob Campbell.

Salisbury’s legion is an older building and needs to be maintained, Campbell said, so there’s a need for more events to generate revenue to pay the bills.

That takes volunteers and a new approach to things.

Campbell said the former crew did an “amazing job” and put decades of hard work into the legion.

“Like anything with the workplace, people get tired and want to retire and that same group was kind of all at the point at the same time, which was unfortunate that there wasn’t half of them that was ready to retire and half of them ready to carry on,” said Campbell. “It was the whole group that was ready to retire.”

Campbell said the 14 new volunteers had not been part of the legion’s former administration and they’ve brought fresh ideas, such as a clothing sale that took place over the weekend and into this week.

Treasurer Dwayne Mann, an army veteran of 30 years, is one of those new faces.

“We had an election in August and 14 new officers and executives volunteered, stood up, recognized how important the legion is to our community and we have a great group of people,” said Mann.

Mann said the legion is a focal point of the community and no one wanted to see it close.

“We needed some fresh ideas and some fresh people to look forward into the future and to get us going,” said Mann.

Salisbury resident Betty Chapman is a part-time volunteer and said the legion represents freedom.

“My dad was president of the legion years ago and he was a veteran and they put so much work into it and if it wasn’t for those men we wouldn’t have this legion,” said Chapman.

Chapman thinks it would have been devastating if the legion had closed this summer.

“They got a group of people together and they put a lot of work into this, and it seems to be booming now,” said Chapman. “There’s a lot of volunteers and there’s a lot of hard work.”

From Friday night dinners, to craft sales, to get-togethers of all sorts, Campbell said the legion does a little bit of everything, but they never lose sight of the respect and pride it represents.

“It’s about veterans,” said Campbell. “We can never lose sight that this building is here first and foremost to service our veterans.”

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