Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1918-08-10
MORE RED CROSS HELP
FOR SOLDIERS HOMES
Hundreds of Wives and Children
Have Shore Trips-Money
Lent to Needy

The growth Of the home service committee
of the American Red Cross has been almost
phenomenal, and already the vacation com
mittee of the service, itself a new branch.
has made arrangements to send 900 women
and children, wives and babies of men in
service to the country or to the shore,
Such organizations as the Country Week
Association, the st. Vincent de Paul Society
and the Chestnut Hill Nursery have
operated, and in July $50 persons were sent
away through the home service committee
from the city.
One hundred and twenty women and chill
dren went to Paradise Farms. one Of the
summer homes Of the Country Week Associ
alton: twenty-five went to Cape May Point
thirtyfve boys and girls spent the week at
Port Kennedy through the Kindness of the
St Vincent de Paul Society, and sevcnty-one
boys went to the University Camp
The Chestnut Hill Nursery will tax" hv"
families each week. Other places to which
families have been sent are tn" Holiday
Houses, Scersville and Narbcrth. the Mer-
Ger Memorial House, Atlantic city: tn" Pines,
tonshohocken: the thildrens Seashore
House. Atlantic city; the Anna SCuIl Me
mortal, Haddonfeld: the Vacation Homr for
Jewish Working Girls, and the Jewish Sea
shore House, Atlantic city.
Arrangements have also been made to send
the negro families this month to Mrs, Ran
dolph's at Chestnut Hill. and to the Rev.
Mr.. Tabhs Vacation Home at Newtown
Square.
Many Are Helped
Mrs. John Boyer, chairman of IN" home
service committee. says she mas found the
work most beneficial not only directly upOn
the women and children but indirectly upon
the husbands and sons at camp in France.
'One woman said she had written to her
boy that she was going out to the country
for a vacation" said Mrs Boyer, "and he
had replied that there only one other
piece of news that could make him as happy.
which would he that he
1T is only natural that boys away at camp.
often having left their families in poverty.
should worry no matter how cheerful I've
letters they get may be, the boys can read
between the lines. They can detect forced
Cheerfuness and they can read real happi-
ness. When they feel that tn" wifi" or the
mother behind is cared for, helped by other
women, those boys cannot but feet load
off their shoulders and an entirely unham-
pered strength and courage"
May Advance Money
The home service section of the Red Cross
does some of its greatest work in small ways
for which no regular group of workers have
been organized and it is considering even
more ways of helping the women and chill
drcn of the soldiers one way is to ~" ready
to lend money TO those families who are
living or partly living on their share of the
soldiers pay, when that small income is de-
layed.
One case was cited of a woman who, not
knowing of the help which this branch "f
the Red Cross is ready to extend. had strug
ged along for six months without her share
of the allotment. She had reached the utmost
deStitutiOn when friend asked why she did
not apply to the Red Cross and lent her five
cents with which to telephone the Home
Service Section. When help came to her she
had not even match in the house
Now, however. the families of soldiers left
here are growing more familiar with the work
of the Home Service committee. and every
day the headquarters, at 1907 Walnut street.
are filled with applicants for some sort of
help. There has never been where the
family living for time on money borrowed
from the Red Cross did not return it.