Feeding the Hungry, P. C. Hiebert, 1929

EDING OPERATIONS ALA It was the best insurance of a regular food supply. Shipments for child-feeding were often given preference over Bulk Sales and food remittance deliveries. At the time of greatest need this was very important for the regular functioning of food distribution. Some of the disadvantages of the Eurelcon plan were: {t required coming to the kitchen daily, which for some meant going a half-mile or more. Many of the people did not have enough clothing to keep warm, and most of them had no shoes—wooden sandals were the common footwear. In a few months this was remedied somewhat by distributing clothing and shoes, so that there was less suffering on that account. Another disadvantage at some places was the scarcity of fuel, which made it difficult to get enough together to cook the food. But less fuel was required to cook the food properly in the large kettles in the A.M.R. kitchens than in several hundred stoves in the homes, preparing small amounts. ‘There was often a strong probability that the ones who needed well prepared food the worst would not have received that kind in their homes. From the angle of the Mennonites there it often seemed a disadvantage to be required to come to the kitchen, where they rubbed up against the crowd. The native Russian peasant is none too clean at best, and the lack of clothing to change, allowed the lice to thrive more than usual. Lice are the carriers of black or spotted typhus, and there was always danger of a typhus epidemic. Hunger helped to overcome the preju- dice, and the committees did much toward solving the lice and typhus problem by distributing soap, disinfectants and lice remedies, and by threatening to debar those from the kitchens who did not clean up and get rid of their lice. Of course these advantages and disadvantages of the ile FEEDING THE HUNGRY Eurelcon plan were not so apparent at first as they were later, but that plan was adopted for the Ukraine, and it was for the most part adhered to as long as regular feeding was done. SOME SPECIFIC PROBLEMS IN THE UKRAINE a. Territory. In the Ukraine there are seven good- sized Mennonite settlements and a number of smaller ones. From Alexandrowsk, the strategic center, these settle- ments lie in every direction—some quite near—Chortitza is just ten miles away across the Dnieper river, while others are as far as 150 miles away. About 34,000 lived in 60 villages in the largest settlement, the Molotschna, and 30,000 in 97 villages made up the population of the remaining settlements. Of these 64,000 about three- fourths were Mennonites. b. Transportation. Most of the settlements had a railway line running near or through them, but these lines were branches that functioned poorly if at all, so that just getting food from Alexandrowsk to the settlement ware- houses often took three or four days. After it reached its destination on the railroad, it had to be hauled by