Sunday, December 15,1963
Inter-Church Council For Social Service
New Weapon To Blunt The Edge Os Poverty
The Helping Ha nds Are Coupled
With Renewal And Rehabilitation
By W. H. SCARBOROUGH
i Like a lot of organizations, the Inter-Church Council
for Social Service hides a lot of function behind a name
that is inadequate to describe it all.
, The name is not intentionally misleading. The organ
ization is new and is not yes fully aware of everything
it will do. But unlike most groups it may never have -a
clearcut picture of its purpose. Human needs may be
pressing, but they are not consistent, and an organiza
tion devoted to answering them can never enjoy the
comfortable rigidity of one definite joo. The Council
! reflects this. If you had to describe it in a few words,
you might start with “need perceivers,” but then you’d
have to take into account what the Council does, to ful
i
fill what it has perceived. Rarely has a volunteer group
mobilized the total resources available in a community
v such as this to blunt the edge of poverty in so many
different ways.
Backstopping Official Efforts
At the same time workers are busy rounding up house
hold furnishings for a family whose home has burned,
another group is distributing clothes to the impoverished
and yet another is studying a proposal which may be
come the skeleton of a project seeking North Carolina
Fund commitments to hack away the roots of poverty
in this area. So comprehensive is the work, a number of
formal agencies with budgeted public funds regularly
seek the council’s assistance. The Orange County Wel
fare Department regularly refers cases to it; the local
chapter of the American Red Cross relies on Council as
, sistance in its work, and the Federal Surplus Food pro
gram reaches over fifty families who would not benefit
, from it without the Council’s help.
i The impact of the Council’s work on improved health
, conditions in Orange County cannot be readily measured,
. but patients have been treated and returned to produc
tive life who might otherwise have died or been crippled
\ for life.
%
Reinforcing Human Dignity
• It would be easy to confuse all this with what we com
monly called charity, but charity is a misused and inade
quate word that more often than not describes ill-advised
and purposeless generosity. The Council has tried to
couple help with rehabilitation and renewal, to make its
gifts count for more than the temporary alleviation of
distress. If the Council practices charity it attempts to
avoid the degradation that recipients commonly feel, and
, to reinforce human dignity.
\
A gauge of the Council’s success in doing this is the
approval and acceptance of professional social agencies,
and the close cooperation that exists between them. The
agencies may have boggled at some of the Council’s un
orthodox methods, but they have been quick to reco
gnize that Council work is filling gaps between available
services, making services available to more people who
need them and increasing the effectiveness of their own
efforts. Professionals have been known to frown on apia
' teurs dealing with public welfare, but any distrust of
the Council has been laid to rest by its achievements.
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Jtfri, George Clifford and Mrs. Lucille EUioU Distribute Clothing
The Simple Efforts Os A Very Few
The origins of the Council are remote, but as a work
ing force in the community, it has grown from the ef
forts of a few into the efforts of many. At first a few
individuals through their own efforts attempted to col
lect and distribute used clothing to needy children.
Others joined them, and as they did, they began to do
other, vastly more complex jobs. Ultimately these loose
ly organized attempts were taken over by the United
Church Women and expanded further. Their work could
not have remained so limited, and last summer the
Church Women appealed to the Chapel Hill Ministerial
Association for help. The Association established the
organization the work needed, and the Inter-Church
Council began to come of age. Although the Council has
acquired a president, a Board of Directors and four com
mittees, its structure is tailored to its efforts—simple
but effective. It has been operating in its present form
since October.
j-
As new as the Council is, it hasn’t begun keeping re
cords as fully as an established organization, but the
files it has are studded with proof of its accomplish
ments and support for its methods.
The Watchword Is Rehabilitation
i * ’X.
In one instance the Council encountered a family of
11, ten of them children. Their home had burned and
the insurance coverage was sufficient only to pay for a
shell home, without water heat, or rooms. The home,
standing beside the charred remains of the old one,
looked as if it were destined to remain what its name
implied—a shell. The amenities could perhaps be pro
vided, but the spark of human dignity and self-better
ment seemed missing. The Council’s representative as
sessed the situation, then offered to provide a stove,
refrigerator and heater, if the family itself could con
tribute toward the completion and furnishing of ( the
house. Older children built partitions dividing it into
rooms. The Council in the meantime had issued a public
appeal for the necessary furnishings. They were donated
and installed.
Today the family is on its way to self-sufficiency. The
mother has found employment and is on the road to com
plete support of her family.
Dozens of similar instances have found their way to
Council attention, but assistance in all its varied forms
is a Council staple of diet. It can range from sponsorship
of a patient who had no means to purchase a needed set
of dentures to the collection and distribution of blankets.
The essentials are provided, but they are always coupled
with incentive for self-help.
Not A Matter Os Simple Charity
When a needy family comes to Council attention, its
Visiting Committee, under the chairmanship of Mrs.
Paul Greer, determines immediate needs, attempts to
supply them and maintains contact as long as necessary.
Simple charity can be self-perpetuating. Council efforts
are intended to last only as long as support is needed.
Another Council Committee, headed by Mrs. Clarence
THE CHAPEL HILL WEEKLY
COUNCIL OFFICERS—Some of the officers of the
Inter-Church Council are, first row, left to right, Mrs.
Arthur Ringwalt, executive secretary; Mrs. Clarence
Heer, Driving Committee chairman; Mrs. Robert Cros
sen, executive director. Second row, Mrs. John Kosa,
Heer, has been instrumental in bringing the Surplus
Food Program to needy families in Chapel Hill. Almost
200 families in Town qualified for the program, but had
no transportation to the program's Hillsboro distribu
tion point. Thirty-five volunteers pick up food parcels
and deliver them to about fifty Chapel Hill families.
The Clothing Committee under Mrs. George Clifford,
last year collected and distributed clothing to over 500
children and another hundred adults.
Although the Council is based in Chapel Hill, it does
not flinch at traveling across large chunks of geography
to do its work. It hhs helped one family on the far side
of Durham, and other needy families in the northern
part of the County.
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The Accent Is On Action
Lately the Council has- been tackling problems which
cannot be answered simply ]jy supplying food or clothes
or furniture. It has, for instance, become concerned with
the problem of school children from needy families who
have no school lunches. There are perhaps fifty of them
in the Chapel Hill Schools, but there is no official means
of providing them with what may well be the only ade
quate meal they will eat during the day. They don’t
know yet what can be done, but this and other questions
are under attack by the Council’s Social Action Com
mittee, under the chairmanship of Law School professor
Dan Pollitt. His committee is also prepared to help with
problems of a needy family’s budgeting, of finding legal
assistance where it is needed, and channeling appeals for
help to official agencies. From the Social Action Com
mittee, too, may come a set of proposals which can form
the basis for a request from the Orange County Board
of Commissioners for participation in the North Caro
lina Fund’s attack on poverty.
Breaking New Ground
A new effort now under way will seek to mobilize a
force of construction workers and contractors who will
contribute labor for repairing dilapidated homes. One
contractor has already volunteered a month’s weekend
work for the project.
The Council has produced a number of extra benefits
no one anticipated; isolated efforts by individual church
es have been coordinated and strengthened, the unity of
all religious groups in Town has benefited from Coun
cil participation.
‘This is really an ecumenical movement,” said Coun
cil co-director Mrs. Arthur Ringwalt.
Council chairman Rev. Robert Seymour agreed. "We
have got church-related and secular groups working hand
in-hand for the community good, not in any competitive
way.”
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Visiting Committee co-chairman; Charles Warren,
treasurer; Dave Plessett, publicity and Community
Relations; Rev. Robert Seymour, chairman; Dan Pol
litt, Social Action Committee chairman; Mrs. George
Clifford, Clothing Committee chairman..
A Channel For Unused Resources
Dave Plessett, the Council’s liaison man for publicity
and community relationships, sees another benefit: mo
bilization of the unused resources the Town’s retired
residents, many of whom actively .seek a means of con
tributing their services but have before this had no out
let for them. A retired lawyer himself, Mr. Plessett con
fesses that he has rarely been busier or happier.
“The wonderful thing about this is that it’s all volun
teer work; it’s good for retired people. We have a lot in
the Council and we’d like more.”
The Council is still very new. It is not too well-known
yet, but already people becoming aware of its exis
tence and its effect. It has secured the support of mer
chants and businessmen who have contributed services
and goods. But most significant of all, it is becoming
known to the people who need it. Poverty here may
never be as desperate again, because of the Council's
talented amateurs.
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Frank Cohan Delivers Surplus Food
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