Welfare Square Visit

Our humanitarian group traveled to Welfare Square in Salt Lake City on Monday (Jan. 9, 2012).  It is located where Harold B. Lee was a stake president during the depression.  It is also where Thomas S. Monson was a bishop.  President Lee asked farmers if his unemployed members could work on their farms in exchange for part of the harvest.  The farmers, not having anyone to work on their farms, gladly said, "Yes!"  Then he asked the city officials if his members could grow gardens on vacant lots in the city.  He also asked the church members to donate some money for a cannery where the ladies canned much of the produce from the farms and the city gardens.  President Lee put all of the food into a grocery store that he called the "Bishop's Storehouse."  Each worker was given food according to his needs.  That is how the welfare program in the church began.

My most favorite Welfare Square story:  One year Ethiopian officials who knew about Welfare Square  asked the church leaders to make a soft cereal for their starving children to eat or drink. The Welfare Square workers designed a mixture of cereal, powdered milk and vitamins that could be added to boiling water.  The Catholic Church and the Mercy Project helped ship the bags of cereal called "Atmit" (pronounced "at meat") to Ethiopia.  A million lives have been saved with this product.

After Welfare Square we went to Temple Square. Elder Glen L.Rudd (now 92 years old) spoke to us in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building.  He was a bishop in the same stake where Welfare Square is today.  He later was over Welfare Square for 25 years.  He knows the beginnings of the welfare program and shared with us wonderful stories.