The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers, Digital Edition > My Day
My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt

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NEW YORK, Tuesday—I have been asked to remind you that at the Hotel St. George in Brooklyn on Wednesday evening, November 6, the Hospitalized Servicemen's Committee is having a dinner-dance. Again the net proceeds will be devoted to the purchase of potted plants and Christmas trees for the hospitalized servicemen not only in this area but in many other places. The Combined Florists Association of Greater New York takes a great interest in this particular charity, it being one of the ways in which it can contribute substantially to the happiness of such men and women in the service who have not yet sufficiently regained their health to get home for Christmas.

I also want to tell you a little about the "World Festivals for Friendship." This celebration will take place here in New York City on the evening of Nov. 27. It is a children's festival, and the children are going to play a most important part in this evening. They are making preparations so that many children overseas will find some Christmas gifts awaiting them on Christmas morning. For many of these children in war-devastated lands Christmas will not be like the festive time of former years, for their homes may be gone and their food may be scant, but these presents coming from friendly children overseas will bring them hope that some day again they may enjoy an old-fashioned Christmas, celebrated in their own traditional ways.

* * *

While I am telling you about this children's "World Festivals of Friendship," I should also like to mention the work being done by the American Junior Red Cross in the 1945-1946 period.

These youngsters are learning to be members of a noteworthy organization, and both at home and abroad they do an amazing amount of good. In the schools of New York, for instance, a remarkable international and national program of service is carried on. Last year, for instance, the Junior Red Cross collected $27,917.37 for the National Children's Fund. More than 8,500 gift boxes were made up, and 1,033 soft toys and 900 cakes of soap were collected.

Clothes were remodeled for children in war-ravaged countries, and innumerable children began to correspond with other children in foreign countries. This last-named activity often has far-reaching results, and may lead later to an interchange of visits. Window transparencies have been made for permanent display at national headquarters.

In the Veterans' Hospitals of this area alone, the American Junior Red Cross provided a Christmas tree, 850 Christmas gifts, 17,984 candy cups, 4,910 tray mats and many other things that must have gone into celebrations for various gala occasions.

The four objectives of the Junior Red Cross seem to me well met by their program. Their purposes in reaching schoolchildren with the program are varied:

(1) practice citizenship responsibility, locally, nationally, and internationally; (2) render service to the hospitalized, the unfortunate, the suffering, thereby creating a sense of responsibility for the welfare of others; (3) create an interdependent world, a belief in the dignity of man, and an appreciation for the cultural contributions of all peoples; (4) develop future leaders and workers for social service everywhere.

This is a big program, but the American Junior Red Cross carries it through successfully.

E. R.

(WORLD COPYRIGHT, 1946, BY UNITED FEATURE SYNDICATE, INC.; REPRODUCTION IN WHOLE OR PART PROHIBITED.)


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My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, November 6, 1946

Roosevelt, Eleanor, 1884-1962
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Digital edition created by The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project The George Washington University 312 Academic Building 2100 Foxhall Road, NW Washington, DC 20007

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MEP edition publlished on June 30, 2008.

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Transcription created from a photocopy of a UFS wire copy of a My Day column instance archived at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library.
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