Many people have asked me how the welfare program really got started. I was just an Aaronic Priesthood boy, but Brother Harold B. Lee told me on several occasions about the first storehouse and events that led to the organization. I am convinced he and his associates did not start the storehouse because people were hungry. They started it because people were idle. He told me that in the early 1930s, they surveyed the stake and found 6 out of 10 wage earners were unemployed. They needed fuel to heat homes, as well as food to eat. People were wearing out their clothing with no money to buy new. He said wives were asking the bishops if there was some way to get their husbands out of the house. Some would leave in the morning to go job hunting and several hours later return home irritable, discouraged, and despondent. The wives' sympathy and understanding turned to bitterness, and before long, couples were bickering and faultfinding. He said the entire stake was on edge, and they realized that idleness was destroying families. Brother Lee went to the Lord time after time. Finally the stake presidency decided they should organize work parties and put these men to work. They sent Bishop Jesse M. Drury and Fred J. Heath out to the farmers of Davis, Salt Lake, and Utah Counties. And at that time the price of crops was so low that farmers couldn't afford to pay for help with the harvesting of their crops. The farmers were asked if they would be willing to share surplus crops that were going unharvested with the Church people who would help with the work. As a result, truckloads of workers were put on the farms, and the farmers kept all they needed, and still there was plenty to give to the stake. They then had to get a building to store their crops; thus the first storehouse was brought into existence. Years later these men continued to bear testimony of how they'd been blessed and their lives preserved through the welfare program.