New Britain herald., 1915-09-09
Committee of Local Organization
 Will Consider Matter

| l h.. SugSGSLcu
 Commerce. The Cleveland plan is
 adopted in the Ohio city in March
 two years ago. Dayton. Ohio, adopt
 ed it about a year ago. A general ap-
 peal is made for funds required by
 various charitable organizations not of a. sectarian character. Each so-
 ciety submits 8 budget of estimated
 expense and the funds contributed are
 shared pro rata. In this way the
 work Is done at once and the public
 is saved from the constant appeals
 for assistance where each society
 makes it's individual plea.
 | The directors discussed the wisdom
 of adopting the plan and finally re- ferred 1t to a committee, which will
 report later to the directors. They
 in turn will act on the matter and re-
 port the decision to the Chamber of Commerce..
 Miss Osborne's Report. The report of Miss Osborne's work l for the summer months, submitted to the directors, follows:
 During the months of June, July l and August, 1915 there have been 6Sl calls at Charity Organization rooms, l 221 from consu1tants and 460 from applicants. On 487 occasions we have l been requested to render a service of
 some sort. 12 of these applications being from out of town societies. There were All telephone calls and
 319 visits made by the agents in be-
 half of the S7 new families we were asked to befriend in addition to more
 than twice that number of families l whom we have known for longer l Inf of i,, 1 33 instances the trouble seemed large ly due to shiftlessness and vagrancy. On the other hand only 16 of the S7 came to us directly because of unemployment, whereas last summer in the same length of time 49 out of " new cases of need were caused by lack of work.
 Permanent employment was se- cured for IS and temporary work for sixteen people, amounting in all to 35 days Transportation was provid- ed for six, dental and optical aid for four and institutional care for two. Nineteen families received temporary weekly aid and 20 received emer- gency aid. Clothing was given to 75 people.
 Loans were made four times amo bunting to s2S. Six dollars of this has already been returned to us. Miss Eleanor Martin assisted us with IS hours of volunteer office work and 3 calls were made for us by friendly visitors; $214.25 was expended for relief from the society's funds, after allowing for the many things fur nished for our families free of charge or at a great deduction; $9O.54 of this was spent fom the agents special fund
 Statistics do not indicate any real value of social service, however. The value depends on the head and heart of the social worker. Our real usefulness to this community lies in executing to the best of our ability our specialties of providing emerg- ency aid, and working toward the CO., operation of all charitable agencies | and the prevention of poverty This usefulness amounts to the energy ex- erted by members and paid workers, minus the handicap of lack of time and adequate funds.- We try to re- duce our handicap as much as pos- l sible.
 Publicity Curtailed. 'The one great restriction that we chafe under is our inability to tell of l our successes. A human interest
 story compels immediate attention.
 and we certainly come upon some
 astounding life histories. Yet our
 lips are sealed on the subject that l would create most interest because 1 confidential aid is the very thing we stand for and this confidence must not be violated.
 "In the larger cities charity organi- l zation societies often arrange with the
 newspapers to print in detail the piti 1 full situation in this or that anonymous family together with statement of
 the approximate sum of money need
 ed to relieve their distress. It is not uncommon to open a big city daily and read about the sad state of af
 fairs in the x family, consisting of
 Father x, helpless invalid; Mother
 x, who cleans offices, and the six x children, none of whom is old enough
 to work. One child needs treatment 1 for, tubercular trouble, the father 1 needs a wheel chir and the mother
 should be enabled to remain at home | and care for her family. Then fol-
 lows a statement that about $500 is computed as necessary for the needs
 of the family for the next year or so. and it Is announced that the Charity l Organization society of that particu-
 lar city will gladly acknowledge all 1 contributions for the family and use 1 the money exactly as designated. Different in Big Cities.
 '"This method seems to work very nicely in the larger cities. The needs l of the family described tally so near i 1y with those of a score of other l families that no reader is able to point | out the family written about. More over in this way personal interest is stimulated. The man contributing $5 l to the fun for the x family has a clear idea of the sort of place his