For your unwavering support and unprecedented generosity in donating to Near East Relief’s humanitarian efforts, Missouri, We Thank You!
As we travel across the country, LA2DC is honoring the accomplishments of individuals and organizations doing the difficult work of genocide and mass atrocity detection and prevention, and providing survivor relief. Among the first to mobilize Americans to rescue victims of the Armenian Genocide was the group Near East Relief, now known as Near East Foundation.
Missouri was a staunch supporter of Near East Relief.
In December 1920 alone, Missouri contributed $10,425.76 to NER through its Christmas Giving Campaign.
The boys of the Reformatory in Boonville, Cooper County, Missouri collected $43.92 from their own earnings and sent it to NER to buy food for the hungry children in Armenia. The Superintendent and officers of the institution were so touched by this act that they matched the boys’ gift and added another $62 of their own money to be sent to NER.
Arthur M. Hyde, Governor of Missouri, joined U.S. President Calvin Coolidge and issued a proclamation, appointing December 7, 1924, as Golden Rule Sunday. Observers were encouraged to substitute their hearty Sunday dinner with a modest orphan meal and donate the difference directly to help feed the starving orphans. Children were the most generous and genuine givers to NER, donating their allowances, and raising money. St. Louis school children gave $10,000 to NER. The Webster Groves High School in St. Louis County raised $612.05.
William H. Danforth, President of Purina Mills, St. Louis, was so impressed by the work NER did to train the orphan children in Near East for self-support that he took the responsibility of maintaining one such industrial center in Beirut.
Dr. R. T Uhls of Kansas City, Missouri, gave the gift of sight to over 3,000 Armenian orphans who were cured from the complications of trachoma in the city of Alexandropol, Armenia, otherwise known as “Orphan City” because of the staggering number of orphans housed there
The Near East Relief movement literally saved the Armenian nation from total annihilation.
LA2DC is organized and supported by Americans of all backgrounds and faiths and Armenian-Americans who believe that it’s time to eliminate genocide as a war tactic. On the centennial of the first large-scale genocide of the 20th century, LA2DC demands recognition and prevention of such atrocities and calls on world leaders to stop future genocides.
