| OCR Text |
Show More Than ilSlioi fa Twenty Suits Fed by :: Red Cross Volsateert : Hot School Lunches & Bl- '. anced Ration Given to ! Drought Victim Seed Pro- ! gram Instituted on Wide 1 Scale More thao 1,000,000 persona in 86 ; drought-stricken counties of 20 States , came under the cart of the American ; Ued Cross In what developed Into tha , most extensive relief operations in half ; a century of ministering to atrlcken j humanity. J Measurea to lessen the severity ot the blow Inflicted by drought were J taken as early as last September, when seed was distributed to more thaa 68.- ; 000 families for the planting ot rye and . other pastures, and to more than 2v ; 000 families for the planting of kitchen , gardens. The expenditure for this pur. ; pose amounted to 1326.800. Green vege- , tables were made available up to the ; first of January. Karly in February another Red Cross garden program got under way and 607.000 packages of seed were dlstrib-' dlstrib-' uted In 15 states. Quarter-acre plots were planted to beans, beets, cabbage, carrots, collardT sweet corn, kale, lettuce, let-tuce, muBtard, okra, onions, peas, spinach, squash, tomatoes and turnips. Once again were farm families given the opportunity to participate la their own salvation. ' A comparatively mild winter contributed contrib-uted to the success of the Spring and Fall seed campaigns. Many habitual single-croppers were Introduced to the advantages of kitchen gardens, balanced bal-anced cropping and balanced diet Numerous land-owners have expressed the opinion that this constitutes the one apparent blessing to come out oi the drought catastrophe. The United States Department of Agriculture and the local county agricultural agents and home demonstration agents cooperated co-operated in making this part of the r lief operations outstandingly successful. success-ful. V Balanced Meals Served Red Cross feeding was aimed at adequacy ade-quacy and scientific correctness, as well as simple economy. In large num bers ot schools, wliere children were found to be attending with little or nothing In their lunch boxos. hot meals were served at noon. A typical menu consisted of vegetable soup and bread one day: thick beef soup or stew with vegetables another day; cocoa or milk and cheese, peanut butter, or Jam sandwiches, a third day. In some places where lunches were not served la the schools, but were provided pro-vided tor in. the regular, food orders, each family tiavlng school children re calved extra staples for school lunches .,nt i.ntiAiv raiaim. nrunes inuiuuius " ' . and tomatoes. Red Cros nutritionists Instructed mothers In the preparation of lunches. County health officers and private physicians commended the adequacy of rations procured on orders issued by Red Cross chapters, which were filled at local stores. Besides the usual staples, such as corn meal, flour, lard, meat, beans and potatoes, such Items as canned salmon, cabbage, tomatoes, vegetables and milk were provided, each order being adapted to the special needs ot the family for whom It was Issued. Where pellagra threatened, eggs, yeast and other preventives -r given. ' f Thousands of Volunteer Workers Many thousand! ot volunteers, through their local Red Cross chapters, gave freely of their time, experience 1 and efforts, as in other Red Cross dis-' dis-' aster operations. They searched out i needy cases in their communities, ! many persons being restrained from asking assistance because of pride. Chapter committees investigated circumstances, cir-cumstances, distributed food and clothing. cloth-ing. " ' More than 500 carloads of foodstuffs were contributed. These were given , free haulage by railroads. Farmers ot more fortunate sections embraced the : opportunity to help their pastoral cousins of the affected area. Shipments ; ranged from live poultry to nsh, from ! grain to gr&PSfrult- Carloads of flour, eggs, beans, vegetables, onions. nc. corn and mixed vegetables were Included. In-cluded. , , As the result of co-ordinated Red Cross chapter flfflcVency, not one au- I thenticated case of starvation as result re-sult of drought has been uncovered. . Large quantities of new and used clothing were distributed. In direct . consequence many school children re-' re-' sumed their studies who had been kept ; at home tor lack of sufficient protection : from the elements. In some Instances, rural schools that had been closed ; were enabled to reopen as a result ot Red Cross relief work. States involved were: Alabama, Arkansas. Ar-kansas. Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Ken tucky, Louisiana. Maryland, Missis-' Missis-' slppl. Missouri, Montana, North Caro-i Caro-i lltia, North Dakota. Ohio, Oklahoma, I Pennsylvania, Tennessas, TexM, Vlr-! Vlr-! linla, West Virginia. Many of thess States bad been bar-hit bar-hit by a succession ot floods, erop failures, fail-ures, low prices and economic depression, depres-sion, and drought constituted a cllma to the cycle of dlstess. "Wherever I went," wrots one observer, ob-server, "I made a point of asking what would have happened If the Red Cross had not been abls to respond. In wide Jy scattered points, from leading clti-ens, clti-ens, came the answer that undoubted ly there would hava beea many deaths directly from ' starvation, with epidemics epi-demics preying BfM aadefH-IshedA aadefH-IshedA .-Jj..I1Jstl . . - |
