Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America, announced today a program to encourage group blood banks. Under the plan, Hadassah members and their families, relatives and friends would donate a pint of blood annually; in return each donor and his spouse, children, parents and grandparents will be entitled to an unlimited quantity of blood for a full year after the date of the donation. The plan has already been set by the Suffolk County, N.Y., Region of Hadassah, in cooperation with the Greater New York Blood Program, Community Blood Council–American Red Cross, and is effective Sept. 1. Mrs. Milton Shustek, coordinator of the Suffolk program, explained that under it, “we will assure ourselves and our families of blood coverage for a year, the processing fees to be paid by Blue Cross for their community-rated subscribers, thereby eliminating blood and transfusion charges.”
On another front, Hadassah’s VIPS program (Volunteers in Public Schools), which helped Houston schools screen kindergartners and first-graders for potential learning disabilities, has launched an adjunct program called “Play Therapy.” Mrs. Irvin Suhl of Hadassah, who prepared VIPS, explained that volunteers and health nurses will help tots overcome their weaknesses before starting school. Similar projects to aid new schoolchildren, plus assistance in food-stamp registration, suicide-prevention, job placement, drug-abuse prevention, and support for the Interracial Symphony of the New World in New York, are also in progress under Hadassah’s leadership.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.