Proclamation 4822

By the President of the United States of America A Proclamation

This year we celebrate the 100th Anniversary of the American National Red Cross, a humanitarian movement born in Europe in time of war and founded in our Nation in 1881 by a small group headed by Clara Barton, a woman nearing the age of 60 who was known during the Civil War as the "Angel of the Battlefield."

With unfailing resourcefulness, zeal, and compassion, Red Cross volunteers have proved equal to the challenges of our time. In peace and in war, they have reflected the humanitarian instincts of the American people.

The Red Cross teaches individuals, families, and communities to avoid emergencies; prepares individuals, families, and communities for those emergencies that cannot be avoided; and helps individuals, families, and communities cope with crises when they do come.

The Bed Cross serves beside our armed forces at home and abroad; provides blood and its components to our ill and injured; and helps those stricken by disaster.

The primary support of the American Red Cross always has been contributions, given voluntarily. This voluntary support reflects admirably the freedom and generosity of the American people. To insure that the Red Cross emblem continues to fly on banners across this Nation for another 100 years, I urge all Americans to continue this support with undiminished vigor.

Now, Therefore, I, Ronald Reagan, President of the United States of America and Honorary Chairman of the American National Red Cross, do hereby designate March 1981 as Red Cross Month, a month when every citizen is asked to join, serve, and contribute in the same example of unselfish spirit that has characterized the Red Cross since its founding a century ago.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-seventh day of February, in the year of the Lord nineteen hundred eighty-one, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and fifth.

RONALD REAGAN

[Filed with the Office of the Federal Register, 2:57 p.m., February 27, 1981]