Charity, Blood Drives Begin Fall Soliciting

Over 300 solicitors will start visiting undergraduate rooms tonight as the Combined Charities and the PBH Blood Drives simultaneously launch their annual campaigns. Canvassing will go on in the Houses and Yard for five consecutive nights.

Tonight's joint opening marks the first time the two drives have started during the same week.

"It was purely accidental," Milton Engel '56, co-chairman of the blood drive, said last night. "But we expect little trouble with solicitations. Students shouldn't let the giving of money interfere with the giving of blood," he continued.

Pledge Drops $4000

While Engel placed his blood quota at 2,500 pints-the same quota as last year-Combined Charities chairman Kirby von Kessler '54 announced that his undergraduate goal would be only $18,000, a drop of $4,000 from last year.

Kessler credited the decrease to the new system of pledge cards which will replace the term slip for deferred contributions. He feels many undergraduates who normally would sign the term bill without flinching may hesitate to sign the pledge card when they must pay by cash or check.

Under the new pledge system, reminder letter will be sent out two weeks after the drive and three days later the House solicitor will come to make good on the pledge.

Employees Give Blood

The blood drive will canvass the University's 3,500 employees in addition to soliciting the undergraduates. Out side the College, blood campaigns will go on in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, the Law school, Leslie, Radcliffe, Sargent, and the Episcopal Theological Seminary, Actual blood-letting begins Dec. 7 through 11, in Memorial Hall.