New Britain herald., 1921-12-15
WELFARE REPORT
 OF THINGS DONE
Directors Of Organization Given
 Inventory by Agent

! following report to the board or dir cctors;
 Inventory! Taking stock again! l The Welfare association does this twelve times a year and gives a sum mary to the public every three months.
 "Om inventory of stock is three sided; The financial standing; care l full survey of the families standing their needs and how met and study of facilities to obtain through every available source the means Of strengthening the families.
 | "l'ndcr our new name we are doinR the same service, our object is un- changcd-distress immediately reIiev- l ed, then a careful diagnosis of the trouble and cause, after a diplomatic and sympathetic investigation of the | family's condition, then 8 plan of treatment to be followed as soon as l possible.
 Lack of Work.
 "The work during the past two months seems to have centcred on conditions caused by lack of full time work or continued idleness. To be sure the peak of business depression seems to have passed, work has in creased, laboring hours have length ened, number have been re-emplOy- ed. However, even with this slight revival of business activities, theer are still and will be for months to come, long standing debts to be paid, and the minute a man returns to his job, down come his creditors on his head from all directions. There are the worn out clothes to be replaced, no new ones having been purchased since last winter. Home equipment needs replacing, dishes will break, holes will appear in kitChenware, bedding has a way of growing thin and threadbare. If the constant wear and tear is not when the zero mark is close by. The food supply is always depleted when the income is curtailed. The result ant mal-nutrition follows, quicker sUs- Ceptibility to disease and ill health are co-Workers. Over and again, due to the long months of worry, savings all used, credit gone, weakness, ill health and despair, we hear of the sudden snap of mental forces as well as physical and a mother goes to a State Hospital for the Insane, or a father knows no solution but to end his own life.
 These are the problems today and we must face them. Hunger is L., the more fearful evils are those of undernourishment illness and despair of hopelessness at the beginning of winter
 Serves As Clearing House
 "The Welfare association is happy to serve as a clearing house and is indebted at this holiday season to other social agencies, churches clubs, merchants, newspaper men, industrial plants and men and women who con- tributed money, time and service to those in need. One little girl came to us with shinging eyes saying, we don't know about Thanksgiving but a basket with turkey came and mother made a big kettle of soup. We had four apples and so many other good things I can't think" They obeyed natures call to feast while. they could, even if it meant bread and coffee next day. Gifts of money to the association supplied dinners to twenty eight families. We also supplied twenty names to sym pathetic and generous friends, as in dividuals or groups, who wished to f,I,. ,icl rrif+ T t1 fo Various churches gave to their own parishioners and offered to increase their service by giving outside their own circle to twenty-four families known to the Welfare association. Maybe on Christmas day other bas- kets will cheer the hungry. But what of the remaining three hundred six ty-three days of this next year, when no holiday warns our hearts and re- minds us of others and their needs? What of the food necessary to health and life?
 "The chidren's food, milk, is the first luxury to be dropped from the family menu (if they had it) when hard times come. Milk is the chil- dren's food and nothing else takes it's place. Without it they become ancmic, mderweight, backward in school, and an easy prey to communi- cable diseases. With it they gain weight, color, resistive power, and q noticeable amount ofo'pep.' A neigh boring city supplies tIe children daily with hundreds of quarts, using the schools as distributing centers. The teachers report gains in weight and noticeable improvement in scholar ships and dispositions
 Nillt For Six Families
 "The Welfare association is paying at a monthly average of twenty-five dollars for milk in just few families only six. One hundred times that number should be getting it. The Visiting Nurse association repeatedly find sick babies, babies who in order to live must have proper food-milk. We know Of many homes where the one quart a day is but a drop in the bucket-soNcn growing children, un- derted, and one quart Of milk The New Britain Fresh Air camp showed the wonderful results of it's daily menu of milk and milk and milk, along with simple. well cooked food. How in two weeks the pounds piled up and how the red appeared in white checks and sparkles in the eyes and smiles on long, sober, pre- old faces, and springs in the feet, and how girls and boys who never liked milk" drank and called for more and more, What a chance to grow strong and well if it could be continued, but the best intentions could seldom off set the awful odds of fifty weeks