A drive for $5,000 for European student relief will be held in all departments of the University on January 7 and will continue through January 11. The University Student Council recently approved this drive because of the successful relief work that the European Student Relief organization has been doing in the past three years, and because the majority of American colleges plan to conduct such drives at some time during the academic year. In charge of the drive at the University will be a committee shortly to be appointed by the Student Council.
At other colleges money already has been raised. Yale recently collected $22,000 for charitable purposes and $5,000 of this went to the relief of European students. Princeton is contemplating a drive for a much larger sum. Last year, colleges in the United States raised $146,677. During the past two years, for many reasons, drives for this purpose have not been conducted at the University but in the spring of 1921 a relief drive was held and the quota far oversubscribed.
100,000 Receiving Aid
The European Student Relief, under the auspices of the World's Student Christian Federation, is giving aid to 250 universities throughout Europe, whose enrolments total over 500,000 students. Of this total, approximately 100,000 have received direct aid from the Student Relief organization. Up to 1923 this work had been done in 15 nations, and this year four more have been added to the field. These are: Bulgaria, Jugoslavia, Lithuania, and Roumania.
The three year report (1920-23) of the organization shows the type of aid given. More than 22,000,000 meals were served, 400,000 articles of clothing and 70,000 books were distributed; and 430 tons of fuel were furnished. The type of work done and the scope of the field is steadily widening. The European Student Relief organization in its report tells what $5 will do abroad. This sum will purchase in many parts of Europe daily food for 100 students or two pairs of shoes or a suit of clothes: it will pay a professor's salary for two months, or tuition of two students for one year.
This relief movement has been approved by many of the country's prominent men, among whom are Secretary Hoover, President John G. Hibben of Princeton, ex-president Wilson
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