Store To Help Appeal

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31129, 4 August 1966, Page 16

Store To Help Appeal

Goods including jams and fertilisers will be sold at a bargain store by the wives of Christchurch Lions on behalf of the Multiple Sclerosis Society for a week from 9.30 a.m. tomorrow.

The bargain store, conducted at 141 Armagh street, and featuring only new goods, will back up the efforts of the society’s annual street day appeal to be held through the city and suburbs tomorrow. Great help in organising the appeal had been received from organisations and individuals, said Mr M. Busby, the appeal chairman. Assistance in preparing badges and boxes had been received from the Girl Guides Association, the residents of

Langford House and girls of St. Margaret’s College. A personal approach to students’ hostels had produced a very generous result. The training college had also offered 35 collectors to work in the street tomorrow. Mr Busby said that he wanted to make special mention of the students who “gave their services quite selflessly.” A mailed appeal to businesses and individuals had resulted in a big offer of assistance with the appeal and financial donations, Mr Busby said. The organising committee, which has been working on the appeal for three months, hopes that it will result in at least the £l6OO required to pay off the debt owing on the society’s rooms in the city. Formed in March, 1963, after an initial move by a multiple sclerosis patient and a friend, the society takes an interest in the 140 known sufferers in Canterbury.

The president of the society (Mr R. Williams) said he was sure that there were many other sufferers Who were yet undiagnosed. One of the main tasks of the society over the last three years had been getting itself known, Mr Williams said. Once people knew what multiple sclerosis—a type of creeping paralysis—was they got right behind the society. A welfare centre with an itinerant nurse, Was planned by the society, Mr Busby said. It also hoped to establish clubs and diversional therapy for sufferers. The Lions Club was investigating the possibility of cooperating with the Tape Recorder Club to bring recorded programmes to sufferers Mr Busby said the society hoped to be able to man between 70 and 80 street corners during the appeal tomorrow. He asked anyone able to spare half an hour to get in touch with the central appeal headquarters in Trinity Hall, Manchester street.,