Penny A Meal Scheme To Aid Starving Indians

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31117, 21 July 1966, Page 10

Penny A Meal Scheme To Aid Starving Indians

The Christchurch Junior Chamber’s “Penny a. Meal” scheme, to raise £5OOO for famine relief in India, will be under way in the city from August 1 until September 2. The idea is that householders accept a small box to be placed on their dining tables, and for each member of the household to contribute one penny for each meal during this time. At 3d a day for each person a household of four would contribute about £1 12s to the scheme—and every £1 raised means a drink of milk for an Indian child every day for a year. 20,000 Boxes The Christchurch Junior Chamber in conjunction with other service organisations, plans to distribute 20,000

“penny a meal” boxes in the city, the target of £5OOO being a minimum figure. The boxes will be delivered to homes between July 23 and July 30 (inclusive) and collected between September 3 and September 10 (inclusive). The boxes will be collected by persons wearing an official collector’s badge. Any person without a badge is not an authorised collector.

The “Penny a Meal” scheme is being carried out for the C.0.R.5.0. Freedom from Hunger campaign, which has been sending urgently-needed milk powder to various parts of India, where because of the failure of the monsoon, 230 million people are living in semistarvation. The 1963 World Food Congress in Washington was told

by President Kennedy, not long before his assassination: “We have the means to eliminate hunger from the face of the earth in our life time. We need only the will.” 4oz Of Rice a Day As a reminder that most Indians have to exist on 3oz-4oz of rice a day, an Indian shanty, erected by the Jaycees with the help of university students, will be placed in Cathedral square until August 5. Tomorrow it will supply free rice, cooked by a leading Christchurch hotel, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. The "Penny a Meal” scheme will culminate in an “India Night,” to be held in September or October, attended by leading Christchurch citizens, where the cheque for the amount collected will be presented. Proceeds from this “India Night” will also be given to the scheme. The milk powder bought by the “Penny a Meal” scheme will be shipped to India during September and October. The photograph shows two of the Indian children who are being given help by C.0.R.5.0.