News: Abbotsford - Junior Red Cross Boxes (9 Jan 1947)

Transcriber: Robert Lipprandt
bob@wiclarkcountyhistory.org 

----Source: The Tribune-Phonograph (Abbotsford, WI) 1/09/2019

Originally published in the Abbotsford Tribune, January 9, 1947

English children receive Junior Red Cross boxes

When the children of the grade school come home with a request for an eraser, a spool of thread, tooth brush, tooth paste, or some other item for the Junior Red Cross, the article is given or the money for it is sent to school, and the matter is forgotten.

These things are assembled in boxes and sent to the needy and underprivileged children in other lands where such items are hard to get.

The boxes from the Abbotsford grade school were sent to the Boothtown Junior school in Halifax, Yorkshire, located in the northern part of England. These children, all about 11 years old, were gratefully appreciative, and wrote almost immediately, but considerable delay was experienced before the arrival of the letters here.

Each letter was carefully written in ink, and told of the excitement of receiving a present. Each child got only one thing out of the boxes, with the pupils with the highest rating being given first choice.

Most popular among the boys were the tooth brushes, and least popular was a bobby spool of thread.

The same day the children also got cocoa from Canada and bananas. The children had not had bananas in six years and some had forgotten how they tasted.

The children also told of their school, which had been built in 1880, with an original enrollment of 180 children, not counting the nursery.