SOCIAL SERVICE.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 261, 3 November 1928, Page 17

SOCIAL SERVICE.

t Writing of a wonderful piece of "social service," two energetic Sydney girls make the following interesting statement to a Wellington friend:—"Let us draw some pictures for you! The first is of Surry Hills, Sydney, with its ugly streets and lanes and low-level alleyways, its rows and rows of terrace houses, for the most part dark, ill-huilt, and with only a few square feet of yard in which a shrub or tree is a rarity; everywhere drabnesa and a sense of stupid confinement. Within its ugly midst, is the Children's Library, at 119, Devonshire Street, a large room with several smaller appendages, bright with pictures, rows of enticing bookshelves, floor cushions that invite to a comfortable sprawl while one enters some legendary land, or breathlessly follows the prairie deeds of a 'Deerfoot!' At other than 'library' times the place becomes a hive of industry, as girls and boys of ages varying from eight to eighteen happily employ a number of arts and crafts, hold impromptu concerts and an occasional weird and wonderful fancy dress ball, or discuss, with those well able to counsel and to guide, one or another of the difficulties which confront them, difficulties which, as we have found by first-hand experience, are, in a district such as Surry Hills, in many instances of a very dreadful kind. In and out of the library, feeling it as indeed a place of their very own, pass some five hundred children of all ages from babyhood upwards, most of whom have little or nothing in their own homes of mental stimulus, of aesthetic satisfaction, or, it would seem, of spiritual encouragement." Connected with the library is a garden in the Prince Alfred Park, dug, planted and watered by the children themselves, a strip of ground close to the railway line, given by the Sydney Municipal Council. But the girls had "dreamed a dream" for some time, and now this is coming into reality. They have secured at Point Clare, overlooking the Brisbane waters of the Hawkesbury, four and a half acres of land that is, one day, to have upon it a real "children's community." Plans are formed for a "Library Holiday Home" where fresh air, swimming, boating, riding, digging, walking, "and a dozen dozen ploys in the open air" will make for health and happiness for the young ones. Some of the older boys are building their own shack, and Poporookh boasts a model "handy man" and his wife who are in parental charge of the young ones whilst there. This provisional home was opened on September 8, and the two brave birls who have accomplished so much have to see that the funds for keeping this wonderful place going are forthcoming; but Sydney is kindness itself, and they are not likely to be disappointed or "let down" in their splendid efforts for the most needy children of all.