Laguardia to Buy First Pencils in 20th Annual Drive for Blind

The twentieth annual pencil campaign of the New York Guild for the Jewish Blind will be launched today by Mayor LaGuardia at City Hall.

The Mayor will open the drive by purchasing a package of Guild pencils from Bertha, a nine-year-old blind ward of the Guild. Bertha will be presented to the Mayor in the latter’s office by I. Montefiore Levy, president of the Guild.

At the same time, the first allotment of pencils in the Guild’s 1934-35 campaign will be taken from the Guild’s Pencil Workshop at 200 West Seventy-second Street and mailed to the thousands of supporters of the Guild.

THREE BLIND WOMEN ATTEND

In addition to the directors of the Guild who will be present at the ceremony, the opening ceremonies will be attended by three blind women who earn their living in the Guild’s Pencil Workshop, They are Mrs. Adelaide Moore, Miss Lottie Gerson and Miss Esther Levine.

For nineteen years the proceeds of the pencil campaign have enabled the Guild to maintain the impoverished blind at its Home in Yonkers; to provide the young with education, training and employment opportunity; and to give weekly pensions to a large number of needy families in their own homes. Thousands of blind and near-blind have been aided in various ways and assisted in the preservation and restoration of sight through the revenues raised by the Guild.

WORK DONE AT GUILD

The Guild’s pencils, bearing the inscription: “To Aid N. Y. Guild for the Jewish Blind,” are today known in thousands of homes and offices, and have come to be a symbol of help for the destitute blind.

All the work is done in the Guild’s Pencil Workshop at West Seventy-second Street, a large part of it by blind and handicapped women. Every penny of profit is devoted to the care of the needy blind.