Proclamation 5392—OPERATION: Care and Share, 1985

Since the days of our Founding Fathers, the American people have banded together to meet the needs of their communities. This spirit of neighbor helping neighbor is one of the Nation's finest traditions. Generosity and awareness of community needs are traits that have kept our country strong. Voluntary service remains as important today as it was in earlier decades, and personal involvement lends a warmth to giving and sharing that no government or institution by itself can.

During the holiday season, I call upon all Americans to join in partnership with others to help provide food for those who are in need. The agriculture and food industries, churches, civic and fraternal organizations, corporations, and nonprofit groups can each play a vital role in reaching out to their fellow Americans. Let the caring and sharing that stems from private sector initiatives reach out across this great land of ours like the warming rays of dawn and bring to all the blessings of compassion and goodwill, to those who give as much as to those who receive.

Now, Therefore, I, Ronald Reagan, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim the forthcoming holiday season to be a time in which partnerships are forged under OPERATION: Care and Share. Further, I proclaim that November 25, 1985, should be a day upon which each of us should focus upon our fellow citizens and collect and distribute food to those in need.

In Witness Whereof I have hereunto set my hand this fifteenth day of October, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and eighty-five, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and tenth.

RONALD REAGAN