With COVID-19 restrictions eased, the Kamloops Legion is preparing to reopen its doors again next Thursday, June 10.
“We can’t wait to have people coming back into our Legion but we have to remind people that we still have COVID procedures in place,” President Daniel Martin told NL News.
“Six people sitting at a table maximum, keep your mask on when you come in, sit down and you can take your mask off. You know the proper procedure that we’ve been used to for the last year and a half.”
Martin says to start, the Kamloops Legion will be open from 2:00 p.m. until 6:00 p.m. from Thursday until Saturday.
“That’s until we have more restrictions lifted because we cannot hold events right now in the Legion,” he said. “So, we have minimum revenue coming in until more restrictions are lifted and we can have our meat draw again on Saturday and Sunday.”
Martin says he’s excited to see the Legion reopen after a tough year largely due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We started the year on the wrong foot. We had the flood [in January and February] so we had to shut down for a couple of months and then COVID-19 hit. We opened for I think it was two weeks at the time and then we were told to shut down until June last year, if I remember correctly,” Martin added.
“And then we opened for a very short amount of time and then we were forced to shut down again.”
Yesterday, the BC Government announced $1.5 million in one-time relief funding to the Royal Canadian Legion BC/Yukon Command to help it weather the impacts of COVID-19. Martin says they’re not sure how much of that money will be coming to the Kamloops Legion just yet.
“We’ll take whatever we get. We’re a non profit organization so any fund we get we distributed back to the Kamloops area and whoever needs it,” he said.
Last November, Craig Thomson, the Past President of the Kamloops Legion was not in danger of closing despite COVID-19 challenges. Martin says that is still the case this year.
“We’re in a very fortunate position. Hopefully when we reopen next week, that will be it,” he said. “Hopefully, we’ll be able to open and stay open.”
