CITY MISSION APPEAL

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 54, 1 September 1934, Page 5

CITY MISSION APPEAL

DAFFODIL FAIR

Inadequacy of the funds of many charitable organisations to cope with all the genuine cases of distress coming before them has existed for a long time, but in the case of the Wellington City Mission, which is organised to handle numbers of such eases, the position is now acute, in fact it is £1500 in debt, though in no lease has any but genuinely distressed families or persons been assisted. The fact is that relief pay does not make adequate, if any, provision for the payment of rent. A woman whose husband is on relief pay has to live with her children on 32s (id per week. Out of this she has to pay £1 for rout, and the balance is insufficient to pay for food, light, coal, clothes, and the smaller necessities of life. This is a case quoted by Mr. T. Fielden Taylor, of the City Mission. The family is in every way respectable, and for twelve months the City Mission has been standing by with a small grocery order and a little coal every week. Such cases can be multiplied indefinitely, says Mr. Taylor. The patience of the women under the circumstances is amazing. Daily women come who are wretchedly undernourished, preferring to feed their children before themselves. Clothes are a tremendous difficulty, the relief workers being.unable to buy them, and the clothes received by charitable institutions being insufficient to' meet the never ending demand. Single men on sustenance, receiving 10s a week, have little left after paying for a room. In such circumstances there is a drain on the City-Mission, which, has gradually exceeded its income to the. extent mentioned above. In order to recoup the. funds, a Daffodil Fair, which will be opened by Lady Bledisloe, will be held in the Town Hall from September 8 to September 15. Those interested are asked to visit the mission, see the work in progress, and realise the sort of people who are being helped.