700 HAPPY CHILDREN

Taranaki Daily News, 18 December 1933, Page 7

700 HAPPY CHILDREN

ANNUAL CHRISTMAS CHEER.

FINE EFFORT AT RACECOURSE.

Seven hundred children who might not otherwise have shared the joys of Christmas were entertained at the New Plymouth racecourse on Saturday afternoon. The Mayor’s Relief Council in conjunction with the Commercial Travellers and Warehousemen’s Association organised die afternoon and were assisted by members of the Plunket Society, St. Vincent de Paul Society, Women’s. Division of the Farmers’ Union, Red Cross Society, District Nurse Committee, Women’s Christian Temperance Union, Trained Nurses’ Association, Salvation Army, Pukekura Park Tennis Club, Y.W.C.A. and Girl Citizens, there being helpers to the number of a hundred. In charge. of the men helpers was Mr. P. E. Stainton, chairman of the Mayor’s Relief Council, and in his words all worked well without fuss or bother and everything went like clockwork. The afternoon was intended for the children’s enjoyment, and the gauge of its success was the happy faces of all the seven hundred. It was a scene of •collective happiness. The want that existed in some of the children’s homes had no place with them on Saturday. The weather was glorious and the racecourse with its green and flowers was at its best to reflect more brightly the effect of the happy effort. There were games, afternoon tea, ice creams, sweets scrambles and all manner of entertainments. There was boating on the Pukekura Park lake, and the swans obligingly did acrobatic feats in the water as loads of up to 15 children in a boat swept past. The afternoon tea arrangements were in the hands of the women’s organisations under the leadership of Mrs. A. Patrick (Mayor’s Relief Council) and Mrs. M. Avery (District Nurse Committee). The position in the past has been that annually for several years the New Plymouth Relief Association entertained the children of various families in and around New Plymouth who could not possibly have otherwise taken part in Christmas cheer festivities. This year the Mayor’s Relief Council, in which the association has been incorporated, took over the entertainment of this year’s 700 children. Saturday afternoon’s entertainment cost about £6O and there are still 600 Christmas parcels to be provided this week for various families. VISIT TO HOSPITAL. A visitor always welcome at the New Plymouth Public Hospital is Father Christmas, who made his annual visit on Saturday. The Commercial Travellers and Warehousemen's Association Christmas cheer committee was responsible for the visit and the presentation of parcels to each of over 60 children in hospital. Messrs. C. James and A. Dunkley represented the committee at the visit and Mr. R. J. Deare the Taranaki Hospital Board. The matron (Miss B. Campbell) thanked the committee for its generous act.