Newark evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1916, 1914-02-10
GIRLS WELCOME
VACATION SAVING
One Hundred and Fifty Attend
Meeting at Hamburg Place
School.
SMALL ACCOUNTS STARTED
IMMEDIATELY AT SESSION
Offices of Fund Will Be Opened
in Kinney Building
Soon.

The first vacation evening of the
New Jersey Vacation Committee was
held last night in the auditorium of
the Hamburg Place Public School.
About one hundred and fifty girls
listened to an interesting talk by Miss
Robinson Smith, of New York, who
outlined the campaign to get girls in
this city to save their money for
vacation time. The committee. headed
by Miss Alice c.. Kirkpatrick.
which has charge of the vacation
savings fund for girls and last nights
affair, provided an evening of ex-
cellent entertainment for the girls
who took advantage Of the invitation
to attend. An orchestra rendered
selections and after Miss Kirkpatrick
and Miss Smith had addressed the
girls short vaudeville program fol-
lowed This was followed by dancing,
and refreshments were served. The
next vacation evening" will be held
on March 9. The place of the meet
Ing will be announced later.
The majority of the girls who at
tended last night had never heard
about the vacation savings fund be-
fore, and had come to the school
merely out of curiosity, but before
they left they started a small ac-
count then and there, and when vaca-
ton time comes around those girls
will have some ready money on hand
to go to some country place and en-
joy themselves.
Prominent Women Interested.
The meeting was all the more in
teresting to the girls when they saw
that the prominent women of this
city who had been named on the New
JERSEY Committee of the Vacation
Savings Fund attended the meeting
last night. They were Mrs. j. Lewis
Hay, secretary; Mrs. Franklin Muir
ply, jr., treasurer; Mrs. George Bar
kerr Mrs. Benjamin Atha, Mrs. Zach
arih Belcher, Mrs. Campbell Clark,
rs. Frederick Frelinghuysen, Mrs
Howell, Mrs. William B. Kinney and
John Howell, Mrs. William B. Kinney
and Mrs Robert McCarter.
Miss Alice c. Kirkpatrick, the
chairman of the New Jersey com
mittee, introduced Miss Robinson
Smith, the chairman of the New
York committee and head of the whole
project, to the girls.
Miss Smith told the girls the his
tory of the saving fund, saying:
miss Kirkpatrick has just said that
I organized the vacation savings fund
No, 1 did not organize 1t; the girls
did that themselves. l may have
given the stone the first push, as 1t
were, but the credit belongs to the
lo1Iff,1 ~ civic who first took adj
vantage of the plan about two years
ago. Let me tell you the history or
the fund.
about two and a half years ago L
got together a committee of women
who were interested in the welfare of
girls. We investigated nearly every
boarding house within radius OF
sixty five miles of New York city.
Now, you girls have probably read
alluring literature and advertisements
<, of various country and seaside board
ing places, telling Of babbling brooks,
silvery lakes, moonlight nights, etc,
and then when you arrived at the
place the silvery lake was a duck
pond and the babblng brook a canal,
and the like. The committees idea
was to put an end to all this sort of
thing by making personal inYestiga-
lions and telling the girls the truth
about each place. We issued a ilst
of boarding places and distributed
them.
"The list gave every possible piece
of information that could be OBJ
tanned about the various places
Railroad fares, daily and weekly
board rates. time tables and the at
fractions at each place were listed
The proprietors of the different places
listed in our book was bound not to
charge any girl who had vacation
committee card any more than the
amount stipulated in the prospectus
When I returned from abroad, late IN
1911, | was told that 700 girls hau
taken advantage Of the lists.
'I discovered that the reason more
girls did not do it was because they
did not have the money to spare 10
go away from the city to spend their
vacations. The committee called
meeting of the girls, and in December,
1911. started the Vacation Savings
Fund The charter members OF the
Vacation Savings Fund were forty
three girls who deposited $50 t1 ,ao
first evening. Now there are lo,ll3
girls on the lists, and they nave saved
s112. 2o3. so. of which $9S,71S.55 has since
been paid back to the girls on de-
mand.
Use Stamp System.
"We used the stamp system IN
saving, because 1t was less work Tor
all concerned. All girl had to do
was to go to our office and buy
whatever denomination stamp she
wanted and paste it in her account
book. These stamps are Of a special
design and have nothing to do with
the mail variety. We saw that only
a few girls were interested at first
because girls who did not live near
the offices, in New York, would nave
to spend car fare. Local stations
were then established in the various
factories and stores. All this was
done with the permission of the en-
ployer Your employer is the man
who will do most to get this project
started on large scale in your city,
girls"
Miss Smith then told of few in
stances where the money saved in the
fund by the girls had been used to
advantage in cases of emergency,
such as sickness.
Zone thousand girls employed at
the General Electric Company are