Red Cross
Boy Scouts, Campfire Girls
USOs

Red Cross:
Kansas City Red Cross dedicated a new program, Blood Donor Service, on December 7, 1942 - the first anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. The mission of the new program was to provide life-saving blood products to our fighting men overseas. The Kansas City Red Cross was operating one of only six blood centers in the US. Mayor Gage was the first donor and by dayís end 129 people had donated.

The American Red Cross had requested 1500 pints of blood a week from Kansas City for the duration. People 21-60 were encouraged to give. From opening to October 1944, the 11th Street center collected about 156,000 pints. By July 1944, Kansas City outranked all other cities, except New York.

Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts & Campfire Girls

200 Boy Scout Troops began distributing 96,000 government communiquÈs, per Rooseveltís request. The first communiquÈ is "What You Should Know About Wartime Price Control."

Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts and Campfire Girls were implored by Roosevelt to assist with scrap drives.

They volunteered at the depots giving away baskets of books, magazines, jigsaw puzzles; selling cartons of cigarettes. Ö bringing a measure of cheer to the soldiers and sailors leaving home.

USOs

The United Service Organization for National Defense was established as a government agency on February 4, 1941, and had the full support of the War and Navy departments. The government donated 15 million dollars to help support the organization before America entered the war and close to that was raised by private and public contributions. It was formed initially by six civilian organizations: YMCA, YWCA, the Salvation Army, National Catholic Community Service and the National Jewish Welfare Board. They coaxed the Elks, the Moose Club and the American Legion to do their part for the servicemen.

The USOs served from 50,000 in 1940 servicemen to 12 million in 1944. It was a club that created a home away from home in over 3000 communities, some near military camps and other in major cities. Hostesses were nice young ladies, housewives, or mothers serving milk, coffee and doughnuts. Soldiers could play cards, read a magazine or be leisurely.

The USO also performed over 400,000 times filled with Hollywood and Broadway stars on makeshift stages, ships and jungle camps. 2 More than 7000 entertainers - including Bob Hope and Bing Crosby were sent overseas to give camp shows to the troops. From 1941-47, more than 420,000 performances were given to more than 200 million troops.