HELPING HANDS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 242, 12 October 1937, Page 4

HELPING HANDS

One of the “all-in-the-day’s-work” incidents recorded at the Wellington office of the State placement service illustrates the wide range of the activities of this service and its capacity for extending a helping hand in an emergency. Among the callers at the office one day last week was a girl of 15, poorly dressed and looking worried and tired. She stated that her parents having died, she wanted to get away from Auckland, and had spent the last of her money in railfare to Wellington. Having wandered about the city in a vain search for work she had turned, in desperation, to the placement service.

Assistance in cases of this nature is not a normal function of the service, but no appeal for help in a deserving case is ever disregarded. The girl’s first need was clothing, and the Smith Family provided this, also money for immediate needs. Then a member of the placement office staff obtained his mother’s consent that the girl should I stay with them until work was found for her, and an officer was detailed to | make enquiries for a suitable position. I Within two days the visitor had been 1 placed on the staff of a local business J firm, and has already demonstrated | that she is going to be a brisk and capable worker.