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Last Saturday, a dozen cadets left the Royal Canadian Legion in Manotick, south of Ottawa, carrying boxes of Remembrance Day poppies to distribute in malls and stores. They returned the next day with $5,000 in donations, a haul that surprised the legion’s members.

“We are seeing a great increase in donations,” says Jean Lanouette, chairman of Poppy and Remembrance at South Carlton Branch 314 in Manotick. “People call us and say, ‘Come get the donations box. It’s full.’ Our volunteers get there and it feels almost empty because we are getting more bills this year, including $50 bills. I think it’s going to be an exceptional year.”

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Attacks killed Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent in St. Jean sur Richelieu on Oct. 21, and, two days later, killed Cpl. Nathan Cirillo at the Cenotaph in Ottawa — just before the legion launched its yearly poppy campaign on the last Friday in October. Those deaths made people more eager than ever to wear a poppy; legions across Canada are scrambling to meet demand. In Saskatoon Diane Robson, who manages 400 volunteers as chair of the local poppy campaign, picked up 10,000 extra poppies at Sask Command in Regina last week. With 180,000 poppies, “we were running low,” she says.