PROVINCIAL PROJECTS 
     
     Red Cross and Women’s Institutes in P.E.I. 
     
    
   
   
    
     (Contributed by Miss I. Arsenault, Provincial Red Cross 
     
     Commissioner) 
     
    
   
   
    
     Although the records of what was accomplished under the 
     
     banner of Red Cross in Prince Edward Island during World War I — 
     
     1914-1918, are nowhere to be found, there is verbal evidence that 
     
     the Women’s Institutes of Prince Edward Island played a significant 
     
     part in making comforts for the sick and wounded of the armed ser- 
     
     v1ces, and in raising funds with which to provide parcels for prison- 
     
     ers of war. (The P. E. I. Branch of the Canadian Red Cross Society 
     
     received its charter in June, 1914 — signed by General G. Sterling 
     
     Ryerson, the first President of the Canadian Red Cross Society.) 
     
    

    
     When the peacetime services of the P.E.I. Division of the Can— 
     
     adian Red Cross Society were organized in December, 1920, the Wom- 
     
     en’s Institutes were represented at the meeting held for this purpose 
     
     by Mrs. T. G. Ives (then of Montague), Mrs. Everett Haslam of 
     
     Springfield and Miss Bessie Carruthers (then Supervisor). It was 
     
     at this meeting that the Public Health Nursing program came into 
     
     being, and was carried out as a “pilot — or pioneer” project until the 
     
     Department of Health was formed by the Provincial Government in 
     
     1931. The Public Health Nursing Program received the whole-heart- 
     
     ed interest and support. of the Women’s Institute who gave their as- 
     
     sistance to the nurses in their health examinations of the school 
     
     c’hildren and the remedying of the defects, in the innoculation pro- 
     
     grams, and the organization of the Junior Red Cross in the schools, 
     
     as well as in the work for handicapped children. The Women’s In- 
     
     stitutes also gave their backing to the financial appeals conducted 
     
     by the Red Cross for the carrying out of these services. 
     
    

    
     The record of the Women’s Institute’s participation in Red 
     
     Cross endeavours during World War II is a glorious one and is unsur- 
     
     passed by any province. During 1940, they donated an ambulance 
     
     for Red Cross overseas service. They led the way in the making of 
     
     knitted and sewn garments for the use of the sick and wounded of 
     
     the armed services, and for refugees. Of the 10,000 hand-made quilts 
     
     shipped by the P.E.I. Red Cross between 1940-45, it is safe to say 
     
     that the bulk of these were contributed by Women’s Institutes who 
     
     supplied the materials as well as the “labour of love” that went into 
     
     them. No other province in the Dominion had a higher per capita 
     
     record in the making of quilts! 
     
    

    
     Since 1945, the Women’s Institutes of Prince Edward Island 
     
     have continued to carry out the largest share of the knitting and 
     
     sewing accomplished by the Red Cross Women’s Work Committee 
     
     for refugees and victims of disaster overseas and at home. In ad- 
     
     dition our Women’s Institutes have given every co-operation in the 
     
    
   
   
    
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