Assistance is to be provided as Christian service, without regard to race, nationality, or religion.
The Church has responded to major world calamities according to its ability to give. Even more extensive assistance to Europe during and after World War II was made possible in part because of a Church Welfare Services plan implemented in 1936. The plan taught members frugality and provident living and encouraged donations for the needy, which then would be available for emergencies and calamities. Ezra Taft Benson , then a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, spent 1946 in Europe supervising the distribution of this aid, consisting mainly of food, clothing, utensils, and medical supplies. These goods were supplemented by a program in which Church members in North America sent tens of thousands of individual food and clothing parcels.