What the Red Cross Seal Has Done for Brooklyn
James Jenkins, Jr.,
Executive Secretary, Brooklyn Committee on Tuberculosis.
The money made by the Red Cross Christmas Seal has done a very definite and practical piece of work for Brooklyn, New York. About a year before the seals were issued, there had been formed in Brooklyn a Tuberculosis Committee, that had at that time limited funds but was struggling to carry on various pieces of important and rather expensive work. One of the needs of the community was more adequate hospital facilities and a day camp for tubercular patients. The camp was to be established for mothers and children, and it was hoped at that time that a class might be formed for children, who could go on with their school duties.
As a result of the first year’s sales about $5,000 was made, and through the help of the Erie Railroad an old ferryboat was made into a city day camp and attached to one of the piers of North River, where the air is as fresh as possible, in such a large city. The first day the camp opened there were thirty-five cases on the boat and the number has increased, sometimes slowly but always steadily, until now the capacity of the boat is 100 patients. The first summer a kindergarten teacher was privately employed, who entertained the children, but early in the fall a regular class was established, as an annex to one of the public schools, and it was the only school in Brooklyn for tubercular children. Now the boat has three classes, of nearly thirty children each, besides fifteen adults.
When the day camp was established and known as the Red Cross Day Camp, it was planned by the Tuberculosis Committee to have the city take it over or share the expenses, if the experiment should prove worth while. The city very soon recognized the value of the work at the Red Cross Day Camp and the children were admitted through the city tubercular clinics. Gradually the city has taken over more and more of the expenses of the camp, but the boat is still known as the Red Cross Day Camp, and the money made by the sale of the seals pays the remarkably good superintendent of the boat, furnishes carfare to and from the camp, for those patients who cannot afford to pay, and also pays for any special training which the committee deems valuable to the patients. This year a cobbling teacher has been employed to teach the boys how to mend their own shoes; an expert course of corrective exercises was given by a trained man; chair caning was taught and the adults and older girls are taught to sew and mend.
The total number of cases admitted to the boat since the beginning is 965. The curative results have been excellent, especially with the children. At the beginning of the second semester of the school year this session about one-third of the children were pronounced cured and sent back to their regular schools.
OPEN AIR SCHOOL FOR TUBERCULAR CHILDREN, BROOKLYN. N. Y. PHOTOGRAPH SHOWS CHILDREN SLEEPING AFTER LUNCHEON