Charitable Organizations

Songs for the Troops

This booklet was printed by the Salvation Army for use during wartime church services in Toronto. It includes many songs, both religious and patriotic, as well as prayers and Bible verses.

Junior Red Cross Calendar

This calendar, produced by the Canadian Red Cross Society, generated  proceeds for the care of "sick and crippled" children in Canada, as well as to help the efforts of the Junior Red Cross War Fund for Children overseas.

For War Brides from Britain

During and after the First World War, thousands of British war brides crossed the Atlantic to start new lives in Canada. During the Second World War this phenomenon continued, with thousands more newly-wedded women made the same journey to Canada.

Red Cross Life Membership

The Canadian Red Cross Society Sarnia branch presented this life membership certificate to Mrs. J.B (Alice) Pardee on 12 March, 1918. Born in 1874, Mrs. Pardee lived to the age of 87, and was buried in 1961 with her husband, Boer War veteran, John Pardee in Sarnia, Ontario.

Red Cross Walkerton Volunteers

This image of a group of volunteers for the Canadian Red Cross Walkerton branch contains many women and their children. Women’s volunteer organizations were essential to the war effort, raising millions of dollars for soldiers and medical supplies overseas. 

Rifle training for Winnipeg women

This meeting announcement was sent to members of the Winnipeg Women’s Rifle Association in late September 1915. The association was involved in training women in various fields beyond shooting, and in local recruitment drives.

Brotherhood Homes


The Brotherhood Continental Relief Fund was used by the Christian Men’s Federation of Canada and the Brotherhood National Council of Great Britain to build homes for those affected most by the conflict in Belgium and France.

Prisoners' Parcels

If you (unfortunately) became a Canadian prisoner of war during the Second World War, your prisoner's parcel sent by the Canadian Red Cross would have been wrapped in a paper that looked just like this one here. 

Canadian Red Cross Society Report of 1940

This is an in-depth report of the wartime volunteering activities and efforts led by the Red Cross in Nova Scotia in 1940. It is particularly notable for the emphasis on the role of women in assisting with the organization's initiatives, as well as references to children as both volunteers and beneficiaries of the Red Cross.

Young Canada Confers: YMCA Conference Report

This book is a report on the Second National YMCA Canada conference at Hart House, at the University of Toronto in Toronto, Ontario on April 23, 24 and 25 of 1943. This conference was particularly interested in dealing with the effect that the Second World War had on the organization. It also dealt with specific advice for social cohesion creation, and the discussion of more abstract topics such as democracy.