Blue Mountains Legacy president Dick Adams in Springwood last week.
Children, ex-servicemen, local businesses and residents will team up next week to help raise money for the annual Legacy Badge Day.
Legacy Week runs from September 2 to 8 and last year more than $15,000 was raised locally on Badge Day, according to Blue Mountains Legacy president Dick Adams.
This year will see street stalls and barbecues as well as the traditional badge sellers hitting local towns and train stations on Friday, September 7 for the cause.
"We will have people at all of the train railway stations and in most of the shopping centres," Mr Adams said.
"We use army cadets and air force cadets from Glenbrook, and quite a number of schools from up and down the Mountains get involved. They really make a difference.
"Last year in the Blue Mountains we raised $15,000 for Legacy on Badge Day."
The first event will be a barbecue at Valley Heights Bunnings this Saturday, September 1 from 8am to 4pm before the Torchbearers for Legacy - Legacy widows themselves - will sell handmade craft items at a stall on Springwood’s Macquarie Road from 9am on September 7.
"We’re also having a barbecue supplied by Hurley’s Butchery during the day on Badge Day, they do that every year for us and it will be staffed by people from Blue Mountains Vietnam Veterans and Associated Forces," Mr Adams said.
"A number of hotels run tin hat collections for us as well as raffles. The Lapstone Hotel in particular raises money for us on Anzac Day and Legacy Week, and they do a fabulous job."
Blue Mountains Legacy is a division of Sydney Legacy and all money raised goes towards providing services to widows of deceased ex-servicemen and children of deceased ex-servicemen, Mr Adams said.
"There are 420 widows in the Blue Mountains area, but no dependent children," he said.
"We have got widows from their 50s . . . up to a couple in their mid-90s. One is 94.
"People think it’s just about people being killed in war, but we have got thousands of potential widows coming out of Vietnam, Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan.
"Both men and women served there and as . . . PTSD [Post Traumatic Stress Disorder] and disease takes its toll, we are going to have a number of people we will have to care for in the future."