standing is the Albertina Kerr Nursery Home which provides for babies of unmarried or abandoned mothers and for foundlings under five years of age. The Salvation Army offers similar services at its White Shield Home; the Volunteers of America provide an additional place of refuge for deserted or widowed mothers and their children; the Louise Home cares for delinquent girls and for young unmarried mothers and their infants, and also maintains a juvenile hospital for girls afflicted with venereal diseases. In the city and its vicinity there are a dozen institutions which shelter children from infancy to seventeen years of age. Many are non-sectarian; Catholic charitable activities in the Portland Arch Diocese are coordinated under one agency; the Jewish Shelter Home, cares for children between the ages of three and sixteen, and serves also as a placement bureau.
Portland offers social welfare services similar to those afforded in most other metropolitan cities. There are children's clinics, supervised playgrounds and recreational centers within the city, summer camps in the country to which are sent selected children and, occasionally, their mothers from the city's low rent districts. An outstanding contribution to child welfare in Portland is the Fire Department's "milk fund," supported by athletic events, which distributes milk to undernourished pupils in the public schools.
The Portland Community Chest, of which Ralph J. Reed has long been secretary, coordinates the activities of 44 charitable and philanthropic organizations, including many already mentioned here, and through its annual campaigns solicits all or a large portion of the funds upon which their operation depends. The Chest maintains the Portland Council of Social Agencies as a social service planning board representing public and private agencies of the county. Established in 1920, the Community Chest over-subscribed its quota in 1939. Its annual budget, in recent years fully subscribed by Portland citizens, provides for the full scope of activities usual in a Chest program.
The Portland City Bureau of Health maintains an emergency hospital for first aid at the Portland police headquarters. The Women's Protective Division of the Portland police department cooperates with the Bureau. The "Sunshine Division" of the Portland City Police Department has won acclaim by collecting new and used material for distribution to needy families. The Portland Fire Department "Toy and Joy Makers" repair annually great numbers of broken toys donated to the organization for distribution as Christmas gifts.
Oregon's Good Will Industries provide work and wages for aged
