WAYS AND MEANS 265 



national forests. Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Campfire Girls, Young Men's 

 Christian Association, Young Women's Christian Association, 4-H Clubs, 

 and the Salvation Army all have camps. 



3. Restricted membership clubs and organizations. These include church, 

 fraternal, and social groups, and farm and labor organizations. Some of 

 these maintain camps for children or provide low-cost vacations for adults. 



4. Hunting and fishing, hiking and skiing clubs — also of restricted 

 membership — which maintain a simple or sometimes an elaborate lodge 

 where members may pursue the sport which is the single purpose of the club. 



5. Boys' and girls' camps run for profit as business enterprises. At most of 

 these camps the charges may seem very moderate. The municipal camps 

 have weekly rates of about $8.50 for children and $10 and $12 for adults. 

 Camps run by such groups as the Boy Scouts, Y. W. C. A., and 4-H Clubs 

 charge from $6 to $8. But even this as a vacation expenditure puts the camp 

 beyond the means, as a rule, of families in the lowest income brackets with 

 $1,000 a year or less. 



At a number of forest camps run for underprivileged children in Florida, 

 the cost has been reduced by buying a large part of the food through the 

 Federal Surplus Commodities Corporation. Food cost for each child has 

 thus at times been brought as low as $2.50 a week. Even here, in order to 

 give the neediest children their outing, organizations such as Rotary and 

 Kiwanis have put up the money to pay for the food and to get the children, 

 by bus, out to the forests and back home. 



There are now 548 organization camps on the national forests, and they 

 are of inestimable value. The camps on the San Bernardino in California 

 alone gave forest outings for a week to 16,853 boys and girls in 1936. There 

 has been a tendency lately on the part of labor groups to join in supporting 

 organization camps for their members and young. But for all the good will 

 in the world, it stands plain the country over that even organization camps 

 most carefully planned and economically conducted can seldom stretch 

 funds far enough, or find money enough, to give forest outings to the 

 neediest. 



We have considered thus far only the need of such outings for the poor but 

 healthy. The need of making available sun and air in our forests for the poor 



