Social Welfare History Project Organizations Page 7

The Indispensable Volunteer

The American Red Cross glorifies the volunteer while recognizing the essential place of the professional worker. The tasks of the Red Cross have required many hands. Its services have been nation-wide. Every county has needed its service, and its scheme of service has needed every county’s support and participation. War time; the rehabilitation days for the disabled veteran; the period of great drought, flood, or other disaster; the time of national unemployment—all these have required an army of workers. The professional workers of the world were not enough alone. When Government wheat and cotton distribution reaches all of the counties but 17, a great system of volunteer participation is necessary. This participation of the layman and laywoman must be recognized as vital. There must be that recognition first of all.

Committee On Youth Councils Of The Welfare Council Of New York City: A Report — 1949

As a result of the growing conviction about the necessity for active participation by youth in their own and community affairs, the Welfare Council of New York and the Civilian Defense Volunteer Office included two hundred young people as participants in the Youth Conference sponsored by those organizations and held at City Hall on January 13, 1945.

United Neighborhood Houses Of New York, Inc.,: 1900 – 1950

“Organized December 11, 1900, to ‘effect co-operation among those who are working for neighborhood and civic improvement, and to promote movements for social progress.'”

Position of United Neighborhood Houses on Issues

“[Settlements] differ greatly in opinion and method; however, they unite in sympathy and common aims. They are working always for progress by orderly process of law and for an America in which all classes shall live and work in concord.”

Organization of Municipal Charities and Corrections (1916)

Paper presented by L. A. Halbert, General Superintendent, Board of Public Welfare of Kansas City, Missouri
at the National Conference Of Charities And Correction Held In Indianapolis, 1916. “If we were able to ascertain the activities of all incorporated towns and cities, it would show a tremendous volume of activity and an expenditure of many millions of dollars.”

Voluntary Health Insurance

In many respects the most direct answer of all is found in the formation of a group health cooperative or similar type of group health association. Such an organization represents the practical realization on the part of its members that they cannot safely rely either for the presence of doctors among them or for adequate health facilities upon the fortuitous illness and generosity of well to-do people. Instead the potential need for health care on the part of an entire group of people is pooled, together with monthly payments to cover the estimated cost of such care. In other words, the principle of prepayment, which everyone agrees is the central answer to the problem of enabling people generally to pay for adequate health care, is applied.

Disaster Relief Experiences of the American Red Cross

Everywhere emergency care was promptly and effectively given. At Pittsburgh the Chapter performed an admirable service of caring for sixty thousand refugees – feeding, sheltering, clothing and giving medical and nursing attention at over 150 centers. At Greensboro, North Carolina, one of the many recorded acts of unselfishness and devotion to duty by a Chapter officer was reported when the Chairman of the disaster committee hardly paused at his own tornado-wrecked business to take charge of Red Cross relief at great personal sacrifice. At Gainesville, Georgia, so completely devastated by the storm, the Atlanta and other nearby Chapters virtually took charge of emergency aid. At Wilkes-Barre, as at many other points, the Chapter gave a wonderful service of rescue to thousands from flooded homes without a single casualty – aided by the courageous and skilled men of the U.S. Coast Guard to whom my hat is always off in tribute for an endless procession of service of rescue. And so it went in Chapter after Chapter.

Bondy Appointed Director of ARC Disaster Relief 1931

During his period of service, Mr. Bondy has, at different times, represented the Red Cross in liaison with the Veterans’ Bureau, the American Legion, the National Council of Social Work and its constituent agencies, and numerous other organizations. He was Director of Reconstruction in Red Cross relief work following the disastrous flood of 1927, frequently serving as aid to Mr. Herbert Hoover and Vice Chairman Fieser in their joint direction of Mississippi flood relief work. During the past year he directed drouth relief work in the Eastern Area. These experiences, together with his work in connection with numerous lesser relief operations during the past ten years, give him an acquaintance with recent disaster methods and procedures possessed by few Red Cross executives.

Catholic Community Service Organizations in War Time

“American Catholics supported the nation’s efforts in the First World War by founding the National Catholic War Council (NCWC) in 1917.”

National Catholic Community Service

The National Catholic Community Service (NCCS) served the spiritual, social, educational, and recreational needs of the military and defense workers and their families from 1940 to 1980.