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Carole Mikita Reporting Pasta, peanut butter and soap -- those are not the first things you think of when someone says The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They are all part of a worldwide welfare program that is celebrating its 70th anniversary
Back in the 1930s, during the Great Depression, church leaders faced the problem of finding a way to put people back to work, to help them take care of themselves. It began in a small way with surpluses from farms.
Today the church has factories, canneries, mills, orchards, farms -- all beehives of activity where volunteers literally donate millions of hours of labor a year, all for one purpose, to help those in need. They, in turn, are taught how to help themselves.
In Houston, the church makes huge quantities of peanut butter. In Kearns, Utah, 14 different types of pasta are manufactured. There are several employees, but many volunteers and missionaries keep it running.
In the heart of downtown Salt Lake, you probably didn't know, church employees produce seven types of soap, but they couldn't do with without volunteer help.
Let's not forget the ranches. Photographer Mike Sadowski and I went on a cattle drive. The ranchers, the ranch hands, missionaries and volunteers seem to work with one heart and one mind.
Merlin Flake, Delamar Valley Cattle, manager: "As long as the people focus on the reality of working with nature and with what God provides to do the best they can, even the bad situations can't get too bad."
The majority of volunteers, even on the ranches, are Latter-day Saints, but people of other faiths or who work with other organizations often combine efforts to help the needy.
A special documentary about the welfare program, titled "The Gift of Hope," airs Sunday at noon, on Channel 5.
