History of CARE International

CARE International has more than 60 years' experience of helping those in need. Founded in America in 1945 after World War II, it was first known as the Cooperative for American Remittances to Europe. CARE first sent food aid and basic supplies in the form of 'CARE packages' to war-torn Europe – where millions were in danger of starvation and these goods were either heavily rationed or impossible to find.

On May 11, 1946, the first 20,000 packages reached the battered port of Le Havre, France. In Britain more than a million needy families, schools and hospitals received CARE packages in 1946.

CARE Packages
CARE Packages in 1946
©CARE

Some 100 million more CARE packages reached people in need during the next two decades, first in Europe and later in Asia and other parts of the developing world. Britain received its last CARE packages in 1955. By then, CARE was working in 18 countries across the globe.

As the economies of the former wartime nations developed and improved throughout the 1950s and 1960s the focus of CARE's work shifted from Europe to the problems of the developing world.

In the 1950s, we expanded and used U.S. surplus food to feed the hungry. The following decade, we pioneered primary health care programmes and in the 1970s, we responded to massive famines in Africa with both emergency relief and long-term agro-forestry projects, integrating environmentally sound tree- and land-management practices with farming programmes.

Today, our staff of more than 12,000 — most of whom are citizens of the countries where we work — help strengthen communities through a number of programmes that work to create lasting solutions to root causes of poverty.