The Wilmington morning star., 1945-12-30
GAINS
SCORED IN STATE
BY HAROLD D. MEYER
Director, North Carolina Rec
reation Commission. Distribut-
ed by the Associated Press.

ed by the Associated Press.
RALEIGH, Dec. 20 - The year
1945 witnessed the creation, by the
State Legislature, of the North Car
DINA Recreation commission-The
first of its kind in the United States.
The Legislature also modernized
the State Recreation Enabling Act.
The recreation leadership of the
state organized the North Carolina
Recreation Association and spon-
sored the first North Carolina rec
reation conference. These three
movements featured the progress
of recreation in the state during
the year.
The commission consists Of elev-
en- members, with an advisory COM
mittee of thirty specialists in vari-
Gus activities and interests of rec
reation and tWenty-four consultants
from national and state agencies
working in the field of recreation.
The individual activities of these
leaders and groups with their SUD-
committees assumed large proper
lions in the sum total of the year S
successful accomplishments.
Outstanding in the activities of
the recreation commission for the
year are the following:
l.. The work with more than one
hundred local communities-Assis-
lance in the organizing regular rec
reation authorities, making studies
and surveys, porviding program
suggestions and ideas, planning
areas and facilities, holding COM
munity-wide meetings, and recruit
ing leadership personnel.
Q. Assisting more than thirty
communities with their proposed
plans for living memorials - the
plans for community centers, rec
reation parks, swimming pools,
recreation facilities, auditoriums,
and the like.
3. Active participation in pro-
grams for youth serving more
than fifty communities in sugges-
tons for youth centers, programs,
facilities, and activities, and send
ING out more than five hundred kits
of youth center materials.
a. Stimulating recreation in the
programs of county home demon
stration groups-working in close
cooperation with the U. S. Agrl-
cultural extension service, Al
clubs and other rural groups.
5. Making recreation surveys and
st,dies of eleven communities and
four counties.
6. In cooperation with the FEEDER
al Security agency - making O.
statewide survey of recreation IN
hehur studies of more than two
hundred churches representing all
faiths and denominations.
7. Special emphasis on recreation
for our Negro citizens-a recrea-
ton specialist of the Federal Secur-
itv agency holding about twenty
meetings throughout the state: An
institute held at the North Caro-
lima college for Negroes and spe-
cial projects of the Negro sub-com-
no;ttee of the commission.
8. Assistance to more than doz-
on industries, throughout the state
in planning and offering sugges-
lions in the development of pro-
Grams of recreation for industrial
workers.
g. Cooperation with the State De-
nartment of public health and the
National Infantile Paralysis Asso-
citation in providing recreation ma
terials and assistance to commun-
tiles and individuals during the Pol
! 10 epidemic.
Other work of the commission in
lcluded four general meetings; ':aine
sub committee conferences; send
! ing out hundreds Of leaflets, books