Red Cross Cupboard Helps Burnt-Out

Press, Volume C, Issue 29672, 16 November 1961, Page 2

Red Cross Cupboard Helps Burnt-Out

“Our Red Cross emergency cupboard is like the Biblical widow’s cruse no matter how we empty it, it always fills up again," said Mrs R. I. Brake, president of the North Canterbury centre of the Red Cross Society, yesterday. She was admiring a parcel of linen, worth about £25, sent in from one of the subcentres. It will help fill a cupboard rather depleted by several recent fires.

The local sub-centre* at the society usually do their best for families in their districts. In a recent Sumner fire, where a family of three adults and two children were burnt out. the local subcentre sent in £lO to the emergency fund for sheets and pillowslips, and blankets were also provided from the cupboard. The »ab-cehtre at Hanmer Springs helped when a family with five children lost their home. Now that the family has moved into another house a parcel of blankets has been sent from the headquarters in Christchurch. Helped Twice Two famlliee which lost goods in fires in Jerrold street last week have been offered help with bedding and clothing. One of these families accepted gifts from the Bed Crews several weeks ago when

it lost much of its furniture in the Aotea quay fire. Often friends and neighbours help with clothing, but the Red Cross will supply this too if required. Sometimes families such as the young Opawa couple who were burnt out recently, feel able to manage without assistance. ‘ Many families are very diffident about accepting help from the Red Cross when they are burnt out,” said Mrs Brake. But the society considers that helping those who have lost their homes in this

way is one of its most important jobs, and always offers assistance.

“We tell people, ‘Your need is the .most important thing at the moment. Later, if you feel able, you may be able to help someone else through the Red Cross’," said Mrs Brake.

Families helped by the Red Cross often sent in touching gifts when they were estab*

lished again. Usually it was used clothing from their children to help the children of another family. Goods and donations to keep the cupboard filled come in all the year from the subcentres of the society. The Junior Red Cross plays its part. Every family on the Red Cross assistance file is given a smart plastic bag of cleaning implements a scrubbing brush, a pot mit, and soap and detergent. The bag Mrs Brake showed yesterday also had a dish cloth painstakingly knitted in twine by some very junior member. The juniors also collect old toys and book* for children who have lost theirs in fires. One small girl came in from Papanui with her mother last week to select bed-linen for their new home. For the giri, who had lost all her toys, there was a doll —not very new and a little battered. She held it in her arms like the most precious baby.