Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America, has embarked on a national volunteer program to help fight poverty and hunger in the United States.
Mrs. Max Schenk, president, announced that Hadassah members all over the country will undergo training periods for as long as six weeks to prepare themselves for a variety of Jobs as school volunteers and to work in the National School Lunch and Child Nutrition Act programs of the Department of Agriculture and in programs of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare.
The first group of Hadassah volunteers started their training in Philadelphia last month under the auspices of the National School Volunteer Program, Inc. an organization that helps set up local programs in cooperation with school authorities.
For the 318,000-member organization, identified for 58 years with the Zionist movement and the development of Israel, the new program represents its first venture on a national scale into a purely American area of community service. Hadassah chapters were involved in U.S. War Bond sales and blood donor programs during World War II.
Mrs. Schenk said that initial response to the program, first announced last month to Hadassah’s 1,350 chapters, was one of “tremendous enthusiasm.” She said Hadassah women were eager “to help eliminate hunger and alleviate poverty in our country.”
According to Mrs. Schenk, prospective volunteers will be trained by local HEW officials in 32 cities and by affiliated agencies of the National School Volunteers Programs. She said Hadassah members would tutor children in specific subjects, do remedial reading and mathematics work and generally befriend children who need individual attention. Members with hobbies or special talents will be recruited to work in “enrichment” programs intended to motivate youngsters toward art, science, music, history and philately. Volunteers will also perform clerical chores and assist teachers at lessons requiring audio-visual demonstrations and at outings to museums, exhibits and parks, Mrs. Schenk said.
Members who volunteer for the school lunch program, an area in which Hadassah has had much experience in Israel, will be trained by officials of the Department of Agriculture. They will help extend food service to children attending urban inner-city, core-area schools and to improve nutrition. The Department of Agriculture currently is providing school lunches for 1.1 million youngsters but could expand the program to 6.2 million children if it had sufficient personnel and therefore considers the role of volunteers to be crucial, Mrs. Schenk said.
The coordinator of the new program is Mrs. D. Leonard Cohen, of Westport, Conn., chairman of Hadassah’s American affairs department.
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