80 years of CARE: Nonprofit with WWII roots navigates huge foreign aid cuts

Tim Thomas vividly remembers the aroma emanating from the first package that arrived at his home in rural southwest England following World War II.

Then a skinny young boy who had endured his country’s food rationing, Thomas discovered the source of the pleasant smell was wrapped in muslin. Inside was some cured ham, something he had never eaten before. To him, it seemed “like heaven.”

The relief packages kept arriving regularly at Thomas’ home in Warminster, featuring canned peaches, cheese, powdered milk, chocolate, sugar, tea and coffee. The parcels were godsends in the aftermath of the German Luftwaffe bombings, which killed tens of thousands of Thomas’ countrymen.

“It was really a red-letter day when they arrived,” remembered Thomas, now an 83-year-old actor and singer. “As you can imagine, this country — the United Kingdom — was just about busted and broke after the Second World War. We had no money. There were bomb sites everywhere.”

Tim Thomas (left) and his older brother, Hugh, are shown in England in 1947. Their family received food aid packages from CARE in the aftermath of World War II. “It was really a red-letter day when they arrived,” remembers Thomas, now an 83-year-old actor and singer. “As you can imagine, this country — the United Kingdom — was just about busted and broke after the Second World War. We had no money. There were bomb sites everywhere.” (Courtesy of Tim Thomas)

The food that fed him and his family came from the Cooperative for American Remittances to Europe, the humanitarian organization now based in Atlanta. The nonprofit traces its beginning to 1945, when 22 American organizations teamed up to send care packages to WWII survivors. Then-President Harry S. Truman joined thousands of other Americans in contributing to the effort.

Today, the nonprofit is preparing to commemorate the 80th anniversary of its first food package delivery. On May 11, 1946, the first 15,000 boxes were sent to the port of Le Havre, France, which was severely bombed during the war. This May, communities will help mark the anniversary by assembling CARE packages for disaster survivors in the United States.

It comes at a particularly challenging time for the nonprofit. Since the Trump administration began making massive cuts to federal foreign aid last year, CARE has been forced to slash wages and lay off many of its workers.

CARE has lost a substantial portion of its federal funding, resulting in the termination of 49 of its programs that operated in 32 countries. Combined, according to CARE, those programs reached an estimated 18.4 million people.

Some of the eliminated programs fed needy people in Sudan, treated sexual violence survivors in the Congo and provided family health care in Bangladesh.

CARE CEO Michelle Nunn, in a recent interview at her Atlanta office, described the uncertainty her nonprofit has experienced. Nunn, the daughter of former U.S. Sen. Sam Nunn, was named CARE’s chief executive in 2015.

“We have 80 years of CARE history. I have 10 years of being the leader of CARE. And I cannot imagine a year that was more challenging than the one that we have just experienced in our history,” she said. “At moments, there was a consideration of whether it could be existential because there was so much uncertainty.”

At one point last year, CARE estimated it would lose as much as $170 million in federal funding. That estimate has since come down to $133 million after the Trump administration paid “closeout costs,” including for vendors, early lease terminations and severance pay for employees who lost their jobs.

After the dust settled, CARE lost about 1,500 workers, including about 100 in the United States. That represents about a fifth of its original workforce.

The challenges for humanitarian organizations started in January of last year, when President Donald Trump signed an executive order suspending all federal foreign aid for a 90-day review. Two months later, his administration announced it was dismantling the U.S. Agency for International Development and canceling 83% of its programs.

The U.S. State Department, in response to a request for comment for this article, said in a statement that “foreign assistance programs are now strategically aligned with ensuring that every taxpayer dollar advances concrete U.S. national interests.”

“Programs that did not directly contribute to making America stronger, safer, or more prosperous were discontinued,” the agency said. “While the United States remains the world’s most generous provider of humanitarian assistance, we are committed to safeguarding taxpayer resources and focusing assistance on initiatives that deliver measurable benefits for the American people.”

Michelle Nunn emphasized her humanitarian organization remains ambitious and has set a path “for carrying forward in these incredibly complex and challenging times. Part of that is for CARE to represent the importance of literally caring for one another in the world.” (Hyosub Shin/AJC)

Last year, about 40% of CARE’s budget consisted of federal funding. Now that number is down to about 15%.

As it grappled with the funding cuts, CARE raised about $23 million in private donations for a “triage fund,” helping it resume some of its humanitarian work. It aims to nearly double its private donor support in the next few years.

Nunn underscored that CARE remains ambitious. The nonprofit, she said, wants to substantially grow its micro-savings program for the needy and continue preventing child marriages, while helping more young people finish their education.

“As humanitarians,” she said, “we are incredibly resilient. We have an extraordinary group of people around the world who respond to the most difficult situations that are imaginable.”

She added that CARE has set a path “for carrying forward in these incredibly complex and challenging times. Part of that is for CARE to represent the importance of literally caring for one another in the world.”

That guiding belief resonates with Thomas. Now living in London, he still remembers CARE’s generosity in his family’s hour of need.

“We were brought up by my mother and my grandmother, both very strict and very honorable people,” he said. “They instilled in us a sense that this was the kindness of strangers and this is a spirit that had to be kept alive. And I think I have kept it alive in my life in that I give a lot of money to charity.”

The turmoil CARE has experienced since last year, Thomas added, has devastated him. Like the United States, he pointed out, the British government has substantially cut humanitarian aid while increasing defense spending.

“I think you have to judge a civilization by how it deals with other countries,” he said. “At the moment, I am so sad because we have seemed to have entered a kind of very thuggish period of history, which is very hard to follow.”