High River residents will see the Legion's poppy boxes all over the community for the next couple of weeks leading up to Remembrance Day.

The co-chair of the Poppy Fund with the High River Legion, Tim Whitford says they haven't set a specific goal.

"A little over $35,000 (was raised) last year, $33,000 the year before but we've been running in that bracket and we generally raise for the Salvation Army food bank in town about $3,800 at the service and typically $700 for the veterans food bank," he says.

Whitford says they also support extended care at the High River Hospital, the cadets and the poetry and essay competition through local schools.

He says wherever possible they try to assist veterans.

"We have a service officer locally and he'll go through, some limited funding, most of them get referred in through the provincial command office in Calgary so we will be making a transfer over there," he says. "Most of those funds will be committed to people in our service area so we have a confidential approach through our service officer. We have three service officers working out of command that will work with them on active veteran's affairs files or whatever they need."

He says there have been a number of new Canadians who've submitted art work and poems through the school contest which is very encouraging.