The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans鈥� fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.

Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.

Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as 鈥淲e Remember鈥� lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion鈥檚 Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.

Nujma Bond, the legion鈥檚 national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.

鈥淎s the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,鈥� she said in an interview.

鈥淭his is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we鈥檙e also engaging in that way.鈥�

Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.

鈥淔or veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can鈥檛 get to a store they can order them online, it鈥檚 Amazon.鈥� Plume said.

Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.

鈥淚鈥檝e seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs 鈥� and that鈥檚 why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.鈥�

But the message about the Amazon storefront didn鈥檛 appear to reach all of the legion鈥檚 locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver鈥檚 Commercial Drive saying they hadn鈥檛 heard about the online push.

Holly Paddon, the branch鈥檚 poppy campaign coordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.

鈥淚 work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign 鈥� which includes all the legions in Vancouver 鈥� and not once has this been mentioned,鈥� she said.

Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.

The legion also sells a larger collection of items at