Feeding the Hungry, P. C. Hiebert, 1929

ood and water supplies were gone when they arrived. It was the rainy season, and a drizzling rain fell every day. The picture of these ships and the conditions of these people soon beggared description. The French took political charge of the situation and soon began moving the people into camps in the vicinity 100 FEEDING THE HUNGRY of Constantinople and other places, some even as far as Bizerta, North Africa. The various American relief organizations met and decided to cooperate through one central Executive Committee. The first task of this com- mittee was to learn what the French were doing, how this should be supplemented, and to estimate the assets of the various cooperating organizations. The second task was to divide the work so as to prevent overlapping and to do the most possible good. Because of our recent arrival on the field it took us a few days to get our bearings, in the general confused situation. The arrival of Bro. H. Schroeder on the 19th, and his report that on the various vessels were a number of Mennonites, made us decide that for this particular group we had a special responsibility. The gathering of these young men from ships and camps, and the establish- ing of the Mennonite Home will be discussed again in this chapter. Their later experiences are told elsewhere. The proportion of children in this refugee army was not large, and of full orphans there were practically none. Since, however, the parents had no homes, were handi- capped in finding work, and had no way of caring for their children properly; and since the other relief organi- zations were not equipped to assume the obligations, our unit decided to open a temporary Children’s shelter. A building to house about a hundred was rented, equipment purchased or received as donations from the Near East Relief, and the institution opened about Dec. 1, with Mrs. Areson, a member of the Russian Y. M. C. A., in charge. This institution became a definite department of our relief operations, and was later placed under the direction of Vesta Zook. Since our American shipment of supplies included a quantity of good second-hand clothing, and since the need of this became daily more urgent, a depot for its distribu- "yIOK MON 0} PPMOULUSISUOY WoAJ OM]-SYNIS JO Anors,, ot} yoo, yey? yvoq oy, UNIT OLINVILVY SNVUL V *6M-4)xIs JO nor oy} Suowe vave osoqy Jo Auvjy WIATONIENVISNOO WV SHUWDOAGY GALINONNGIV THE FIRST ESSAY INTO RUSSIA 101f tion was provided in the basement of the Children’s Shelter, and this work organized in a separate department with Bro. J. E. Brunk in charge. More will be said about this. Some weeks later the need for a young Women’s Home became apparent. There were many girls and women who needed help and a place to stay until they could find work or could go on to friends. A fuller report comes later in this chapter. Much general miscellaneous relief work was done by the Unit besides