# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1947_S656
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

656 MISCELLANEOUS MATTERS

Child-Feeding Program

Since 1934, religious training for children had been taboo in
Germany. During the many years of war preparation and actual
conflict, the child was the most neglected of all. Father was at
war; Mother worked in munition factories. All there was left
for most children to do was roam the streets, God never became
a part of their life. The extent of their education reached no
farther than cheap Nazi propaganda.

Today Germany literally swarms with children. Thousands
roam about, without parents or home. Even greater numbers are
neglected by their families for lack of food. Bishop Dibelius of
Berlin, in estimating the deplorable Situation, surmised that most
children under two and one-half years died this winter in the
Berlin area,

In October, 1946, Drs. Behnken, Sieck, and Meyer had a
meeting with the members of the American Section of the Lu-
theran World Convention, in which the Missouri Synod obligated
itself to $166,000 (one third ‘of $500,000) for a Child-Feeding Pro-
gram in Central Europe.

The program called for a special allotment of five hundred
calories per child per day for three months. The cost was estimated

at approximately $7.00 per child. The donors’ amounts were al-_

located as follows:
$ 10,000 for Austria
10,000 for Czechoslovakia
10,000 for Hungary
10,000 for Poland
10,000 for Finland
116,000 for Russian Zone in Germany

Solicitation for this Child-Feeding Program was carried on by
means of a “silent” campaign among the membership of Synod.
By April, 1947, our Christians had responded to this campaign with
contributions totaling $295,000, approximately $129,000 more than
originally contemplated. Because this request was answered so
enthusiastically, the Emergency Planning Council bought additional
food, such as twenty carloads of cereals, two carloads of oranges,
as well as other necessary items, so that in all $291,000 has been
contributed to the Child-Feeding Program inaugurated by the Lu-
theran World Convention.

Orphanages

The support of orphans and orphanages is one to which the
Lutheran Women’s Missionary League has devoted itself whole-
heartedly. In an official resolution in July, 1945, this body dedi-
cated its 70,000 members for work among the orphaned and dis-
located children in Europe. The valiant efforts of the Lutheran