Americans’ compassion in a tidy box: CARE packages turn 75
On May 11, 1946, a ship carrying 15,000 boxes of surplus U.S. military food rations left over after World War II steamed into the port of Le Havre, on the French periphery of a hungry, devastated, and demoralized Europe.
Organized by a new consortium of 22 humanitarian aid groups named the Cooperative for American Remittances to Europe, and largely purchased from the government with donations from average Americans, the boxes of basic foodstuffs and other essentials would soon carry a name that today connotes concern and support for others, especially loved ones.
Those boxes that arrived in France 75 years ago Tuesday were the original CARE packages.
By the 1960s, more than 100 million CARE packages would be delivered across Europe – 10 million in Germany alone, America’s World War II enemy.
And while an inventory list would confirm that each CARE package carried
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