CHRISTMAS CHEQUES

Dominion, Volume 20, Issue 75, 22 December 1926, Page 11

CHRISTMAS CHEQUES

FOR CHILDREN’S HOMES

COMMERCIAL TRAVELLERS’ FUND DISTRIBUTED

Annually the Commercial Travellers’ Club of Wellington, as represented by their president and members of the committee, make a joy journey round to the ; children’s homes of the city, scattering seeds of sunshine in the form of cheques with which to buy Christmas cheer for all the little boys and girls who might be forgotten because they happen to be nobody’s particular charge. This year's tour was made yesteraay. A spirit, like a golden thread, working in and out through the warp and weft of the organisations is really the mainspring and mainstay of the various in- , stitutions. For example, the .Rev. Fell- i j den Taylor, the Anglican missioner of international fame, sits in his humble home in Taranaki Street planning for the happiness of others during the coming Christmas. j “Hullo, boys, come in, come! was his greeting. “Well, how are all yon rogues since I saw you last? ’Pon my soul, you’re all looking pretty right- , Hullo, how many more? 7 ’ as the party streams into the jumbled room. , It was not until this wonderful man finished his chfEf that Mr. E. Little, the < president of the Commercial Travellers and Warehousemen’s Association, was able to get in his little word, which had a reference to a little cheque for the canon’s big family, th.e raising of which had been a little harder work this year, but was always a labour of love. "Oh, yes, we’re doing something, we have a mothers’ camp up at Paraparaumu, mothers with their babies—l 6 of j them. There’s another camp at Plimmerton, and another for the girls on the Levin racecourse—always use the racecourses if we can get them! . . . Then we have a bis camp at Ashhurst for 200 boys. Something doing! From the dull precincts of St. Peter s Mission in Taranaki Street, the party • ■ made a bee-line for the Salvation Army e Boys’ Home at Island Bay, where Ensign Bottley and his cheerful wife (who is the matron) gave the travellers a very war welcome. Here again Mr. Little made his little speech, and produced an en velope. which he handled nervously as he spoke, Mr. Bottley said that the travellers of Wellington were the good Samaritans of the place. To them he Rave a big rf Thauk you. S After a whirl up a grade and. a knock at a big green door, a blue sister appeared and extended a hand of welcome It was the Home cf Compassion. There was something of sadness in the ,visit to those who had been there before and had the privilege personal acquaintance of the painted founder of the order, for since last . Christmas she had been called l to> her reward. Still, there was a small army of cheerful sisters, who broke awaj , from their busy tasks to give them. n of commerce a greeting. Io bister Cecelia, the acting superior of the or<|er, and Sister Clotilde the .local superior, was handed the cheque that should ( bring cheer to the little ones at the , " e At the Levin Memorial Home the partv was received by Miss Wilson, who said , that it has been arranged to take tne girls—there are only girls in the home—for a whole month to Palmerston North, which they perhaps would not have been able to do without the help of the travellers. Miss Wilson indicated an area that was being converted into a playground. There was still a good deal of excavating to be done, work which' had been kindly undertaken by Toe TL On behalf of the homo she gave her heartfelt thanks to the travellers and wished them one and all a happy Christmas. The matron of the ■Salvation Army- Girls’ Homo in Owen Street’was out when the visitors called, but the honours were courteously and cheerfully done by Miss Trevarthen, , who expressed her great thanks to the travellers for their great kindness, and allowed it to be known that they had already overstepped, the mark a little In anticipation of help that always canto from a certain quarter. The last place visited was, the Children’s Hospital, where Matron Stott received with her customary heartiness, and showed the visitors into the children who were regaining their health j and strength in cots placed in. the sun, with a light awning to keep off the direct rays of a busy sun. There must have been about twenty of these, most of them infantile paralysis cases, all ever so interested in the sudden in- ■ vasion of their quarters. Tho allocation was as follows: Salva. tion Army Home (girls), £4O; Salvation I Army Home (boys), £4O; Presbyterian Girls’ Home, £4O; Presbyterian Boys’ > Home, £4O; Children’s Hospital, £5O; Home of Compassion, £5O; Levin Memorial Home, £l5; Anglican Boys’ Home, I £35; Anglican Girls’ Home, £35; St. Joseph’s Orphanage. £25; Fielden Taylor Stop Out Club, £35; the matron, Citizens’ Day Nursery, £10; District Nursing Guild, St. John, £10; Residential t Nursery, £10; the matron, St. Barnabas Home, £l5; Education Department, Special Schools’ Branch, £10; Porirua Mental Hospital for Children, £10; Convent of Mercy, Lower Hutt. £5: Mt. Cook, Defective Children, £10; total, I £485.