Legion Ladies Auxiliary is a non-profit organization that originated during the First World War when women were asked to help wounded Veterans returning home and to provide support for their families. Over the years, the local Legion Ladies Auxiliary has assisted the Neepawa branch as needed as well as remembered the veterans and their families. In addition, they’ve carried out fundraising activities that support local health facilities, schools, youth organizations and charities.

NAC TV had a chance to chat with Laurie Kohinski, past President of the Board and Elsie Slimmon, current Sergeant at Arms of the Neepawa Legion Ladies Auxiliary. Both of them shared that the reason they got involved with the Legion Ladies was that they have family members who were World War2 veterans and who were later on involved with the Legion here in Neepawa and other Legion chapters.

The organization’s biggest project is the meal fundraiser and they have supported a lot of organizations in the community such as the Home Assistance Neepawa & District (HAND), HANDI-VAN, Neepawa Wildlife Association, Neepawa Health Auxiliary and the list goes on.  They were asked if their organization was affected by COVID and Kohinski replied “Oh Absolutely because most of our members are Seniors. Because of COVID, we tried to be very careful. So when COVID did hit, we were shut down for a year and a half or so. And then when we did fire up again, we kind of started again. We had to be very careful.  We have a lot of members and just the general public are staying at home and being very careful.”   

When asked about the growing membership of the Neepawa Legion Ladies, Kohinski mentioned that they currently have around eighty members. Despite the growing number of members, they emphasized the need for more young people to get involved since most of their members are Seniors.

“I think the Legion Ladies Auxiliary is an amazing organization to be involved with. We want to help out our Veterans who fought for this world to become a better place. We are just trying to continue on to make it better for everyone else and our community here in Neepawa by helping them out as well.” said Slimmon.