SELF-HELP CLUB.

Manawatu Standard, Volume IV, Issue 221, 19 August 1931, Page 3

SELF-HELP CLUB.

ENTERPRISE IN STRATFORD. On the optimistic principle that selfhelp can beconle as infectious as gloom and depression, a “self-help club” has been started in Stratford. The town has excellent gardening facilities, and those who are the prime movers hope that the kitchen garden and firewood scheme will mean that everey hard-up family will be at least 15s a week better off.

Every public body in the town is represented in the local committee, and it will be a rule of the “self-help club” that healthy families cannot expect sustenance from relief depots next year unless .they make a reasonable effort to benefit themselves under the self-help scheme. It has been pointed out that if only 40 families were to enrol, and if they were enabled to supply themselves with fresh food and firing to the value of 10s a week for eight months in the year, the town would have £6OO in charity., and have this amount available in the community. The committee anticipates, however, that a much more substantial benefit than this will result.

On Monday a small leaflet setting out the things which the “self-help club” would do was handed to every married unemployed man on the committee lists. The leaflet, which is headed with the motto, “Not charity, but a chance,” reads as follows: —“1. Will help you to grow 10s worth of vegetables weekly for eight months in the year. 2. Will locate good firewood for you, and help you as far as we are able to get it home after you have split it. 3. Will give you this spring at least 10s worth of seeds and manures, and only ask you to give back the equivalent sum in excess vegetables next auturiin. 4. Will send a man to help you with the garden. If your backyard is shady, windswept, or full of couch, ask our gardening officer what you should do with it. o. Will help you to market your excess vegetables for you if you like, and give you hack the cash. 6. Will get you suitable gardening land if you are not certain of remaining in your present home 12 month. 7. The club invites all married men with families to enrol now at the unemployment office. The committee will then invite all enrolled members to meet them some evening to discuss details.”