NICK EICHER, HOST: And now for this hour’s storyline. The American Legion is raising awareness of veterans for Memorial Day.
WJI Reporter Jeremiah Yonemura has more from a small town in Northwest Iowa.
SOUND: [Carts moving, car engines, scanning of items]
JEREMIAH YONEMURA:
In front of the Fareway grocery store in Sioux Center, volunteers hand out red, paper poppies in honor of those who died.
SOUND: [volunteer asking customer if he wants a poppy]
The volunteers carry an empty, tin can for donations.
SOUND: [sound of coins thrown into can]
Angie Reisma volunteers for American Legion because her uncles and sister served.
ANGIE REISMA: Support the veterans that supported us, kept us free.
Another distributor, Jean Brandes, says that donations support the disabled veterans who make the poppies at the Iowa Veterans Home in Marshalltown.
But in the future, the unit may have to make some of the poppies themselves.
JEAN BRANDES: So I think this may be the last year that we’ll be able to get all of them from the Iowa Veterans Home because there are fewer of them that are willing to do it. So, they have to come up with a different idea.
Local grocery shopper Randy Bubke grabbed a poppy and donated some change.
RANDY BUBKE: Well, it’s just a way to show that we remember the people that have gone and served this country and sacrifices they make.
Reporting for WORLD Journalism Institute, I’m Jeremiah Yonemura in Sioux Center, Iowa.
