All churches located in the Archdiocese of Atlanta will participate in a drive for clothes during the week of November 24 to 30.

Chancellor of the archdiocese, the Very Reverend Harold J. Rainey, who is chairman of the drive, stated that this is a part of a national drive to assist the National Catholic Welfare Conference in its annual effort to alleviate the needs and misery of the destitute throughout the world.

Clothing and material contributed to the annual Thanksgiving Clothing Collection is packed and shipped overseas and distributed to the needy to 67 countries where Catholic Relief Services maintain programs of relief and welfare. Distribution is made entirely without reference to race, religion, color or national origin. The sole criterion is human need.

For the fifteenth consecutive year this clothing drive will be conducted with emphasis on used clothing, shoes, bedding, blankets, and household linens.

Serving 40 million hungry, homeless and destitute through 88 overseas field offices with a supervisory staff of 130 Americans, Catholic Relief Services is the world’s largest private voluntary relief organization.

Eight thousand tons of clothing, blankets, and shoes were collected in the United States last year.

Not only can this drive provide protection against winter cold or torrential seasonal rains or blazing tropical sun, it can often safeguard the very young against crippling or deadly disease, aid impoverished people to find work or continue working, enable children to attend school, etc.

During this drive the nearest Catholic church will accept donations, and all are urged to “give thanks by giving.”