Carry coal up five floors?

MICKEY BOYS ARE ON TOP HERE
By Elisabeth Casbonier ONE morning six months ago, a large white box appeared in a backstreet of Munich. It was chained to a lamp post and had a bright green Mickey Mouse, painted on one side.
On it was a notice: " We, the members of the Mickey Mouse Club of Munich Town help old, invalid and poor people. We carry coal, do the shopping and anything they need free of charge. Please drop requests in this box."
This innovation is one result of a drive in modern Catholic education which is aiming at turning children's attention to aspects of life that can be adventurous without brutality or Teddy Boy activities.
The founder of the Mickey Mouse Clubs—they are now spreading to other towns—is a 13year-old schoolboy Uwe. One day, he helped an elderly lady across the street in Munich's rather chaotic traffic. She thanked Uwe so gratefully that the next day he invited six friends to a "meeting" and told them "We are going to start a help service for Old Munich Citizens."
As uniform, he proposed a yellow scarf and a Mickey Mouse button hole. The club name was taken from their favourite weekly paper. Immediately the requests poured in. The first was from an 85-yearold lady asking for coal to be carried from the cellar to her fifth floor room.
They chopped her w o o d. cleaned and tidied her cellar and then did the shopping.
An old man, a cripple living alone, needed help in tidying up his room. The M.M.C. members tidied it and then distempered it with distemper given by a shopkeeper who heard of their good work.
Since the foundation of the club the six members and their chief have carried over 60 cwts. of coal and wood into old people's homes. They have cleaned. washed, exchanged library books, written letters for those who are too crippled to write.
They have their own club Rai: embroidered by Uwe's mot h.• and they have a Mickey Mouse emblem on their bikes. They keep a file for requests and now have seven more helpers.
And. what is more, " branches " are springing up in other parts of the country. All of them work specially for old people who still live in garrets and cellars whit: post-war Germany is booming.
Any extra money they are given is put into a communal fund to pay tramway fares for those who have no hikes, or to buy small items for the old customers such as sweets or a magaeine.
This is a beginning, made by one small boy. But it is spreading and encouraging more boys— many of whom come from homes where the parents were Nazi parts members or have grown indifferent to the Faith — to use their spare time constructively and sometimes excitingly at the same time.