COVID-19 prompts changes at Regina’s Legion branch

Regina’s Royal Canadian Legion branch is set to make some changes in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I always say COVID was kind of the best and worst thing that happened to us because it gave us time to really focus in on where our strengths and weaknesses lie, especially with our financial model,” Jody Salway, the executive director of the Royal Canadian Legion Regina Branch 001, said on Friday’s Greg Morgan Morning Show.

“It gave us a chance to go through our books and see just what was working and what wasn’t working for us.”

The pandemic has caused serious financial hardships for Saskatchewan businesses and organizations — and the Legion wasn’t immune.

As a result of that, the Regina branch has leased out its restaurant. Salway says tenants “who have some amazing Italian food” are to move into the restaurant in September.

The Legion has reopened its bar and is following the provincial government’s public health guidelines for such establishments, including operating at 50 per cent capacity and doing extra sanitizing and cleaning.

However, plans for the museum inside the building on Cornwall Street are in a state of flux.

“We’re having discussions around maybe losing 50 per cent of the museum at first, just doing a gradual change,” Salway said.

“There are a lot of moving parts with that museum in the sense we can’t replace any of the artifacts that are in there. There’s no fire suppression and there’s no climate control in that museum. It was never really designed to be one, so that has always been sort of our priority.

“The second thing is, the interest has just declined. People can take virtual tours now and we’re just not set up for that. (Visits to the museum) just don’t generate revenue for us and that’s what we need to survive in a downtown location.”

Because of that, things will be changing with the museum portion of the building.

“We’re going to try to find a home for a majority of the objects,” Salway said. “We’re going to try to ‘re-home’ the objects that have been donated by families maybe a generation or so ago and then we’re looking at probably creating a co-working space.

“Initially, the concept is that we would help other non-profits or charities that were starting up (by leasing them space).”

The pandemic caused a sharp downturn in the Legion’s revenues, but Salway noted there was “a massive spike” in the demand for its programs.

That was particularly evident in the assistance required by homeless veterans.

“That one caught me off guard because as the service officer, I wasn’t seeing a whole lot of homeless vets come forward,” Salway said. “A lot of the homeless vets we would see were couch-surfing or living out of their car.

“The two that we helped were sleeping hard on the street — and it was so very expensive to get just one of them off the street.”

So Legion officials drew up a business proposal and sent it to the City of Regina in hopes of creating what Salway called “a veteran village.” Its 10 homes would provide shelter for veterans in need of housing.

Now the Legion is looking for sponsorship for the project from the business community and from members of the public who want to help out.

“The best thing that people can do for the Legion is go to our website, see what we do and try to understand us a bit better,” Salway said.