The project, designed to improve health conditions in Harrison County, also provided an opportunity for men to engage in relief work in the community.  As such the unit was described as “relief work at home”, as compared to foreign relief training for work abroad.  High standards crafted for admission stressed the same standards stated for foreign relief training units.

As word of the new Gulfport unit spread throughout existing locations, controversy arose, especially in some of the camps administered by the American Friends Service Committee and the Brethren Service Committee.  In particular, CPS assignees wanted to know if the new unit would be “freely interracial or Jim Crow”. 

Seventy-one men from CPS Unit No. 80 in Lyons, New Jersey, a Brethren mental hospital unit, wrote NSBRO objecting to Shotts’s statement that, “As far as I know there has been no CPS project either in the south or the north where there had been advance agreement that men will be received without race distinction.  It is exceedingly unfortunate that we cannot carry out religious ideals on race along with our religious convictions about war.” 

The Lyons men feel strongly that by failure to address “the race question the NSB is not accurately representing the concerns of the historic peace churches.  They also feel that to live consistently we can tolerate no condition short of equality for all, and that if we do accept such conditions we are making a deal with the race-baiters and are denying the basic Christian principle of Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of men.” (Box 96, [March, 1945] p. 2 in Gingerich p. 259)

The writer of the above article, from the public health camp at Mulberry, Florida, argued that the Gulfport unit should be opened regardless of racial politics, since “We do not agree that if we cannot have an ideal arrangement-- in this case racial equality—at the outset, we should stay out.  We do not agree that more good can be done by refusing to go into such a situation than by going in and trying to improve conditions by working on the local scene.”  His conclusion was that by carrying out a health program serving both races equally while demonstrating with small acts belief in the brotherhood of man, more could be accomplished toward addressing the problem than not opening a camp in the South.  (Gingerich p. 259)

The camp opened in February 1945.  As a first project, the men installed sanitary facilities at a Boy Scout camp near Biloxi, since it was without water or sewage systems and the toilets were inadequate.  Heavily utilized, Wilkes Camp affected the health of many.

The coordinated effort to address hookworm disease and other sanitation problems began with a door-to-door survey conducted by James Rineer to obtain information on excreta disposal, water facilities and screening.  If he discovered that the family had no toilet, he attempted to sell them a new $30 sanitary privy.  If the family was unable to buy one, he attempted to sell a base unit for $9 upon which they could construct their own toilet facility.  By the fall of 1945, he had made 1,200 calls and found that 63 percent of those contacted had unsanitary toilet facilities and 9 percent had no toilet facilities at all.  (Gingerich p. 261, Haury p. 6)

On CPS assignee at Gulfport offered an educational program in the community, showing health films to Boy Scout groups and other organizations throughout the county. 

Some of the men created materials for hookworm education. One drafted maps to identify areas with unsanitary conditions.

A team devoted primary effort to the construction and installation of sanitary privies.  Men prefabricated the privy bases of cypress for durability, a concrete slab with riser, made the walls and seat of pine, and topped the unit with a corrugated roof.  The men hauled the units to the site by truck, where they dug the hole and affixed the parts to erect the privy.  The first privy was installed on June 14, 1944.

By March 21, 1946, the men had installed 319 privies and visited 1,442 homes.  Privies cost $30, which covered the materials only, since CPS men were not paid for their labor. Any receipts over expenses were returned to the revolving health fund for direct health programs of Harrison County Public Health.

In the second stage, men contacted students directly in the schools.  “During the first year, the Camp sent 3,319 letters to children and spoke to 3,744 children in school.”  The men also operated a laboratory which ran tests for hookworm and other diseases.  “During this same period they performed 2,983 blood tests for syphilis, 1,080 tests for other venereal diseases, 1,953 tests for intestinal parasites, 358 chest X rays, and 211 diphtheria cultures. Responding to the results of these tests, they made 233 visits to homes of hookworm victims and delivered 347 packages of hookworm medicine.” (Report on Health Related Activities, April 1, 1945 to March 31, 1946, in Haury, p. 6)

The CPS men worked with the County Health Department on several special projects, including a rat-poisoning campaign to control typhus, spending 349 person days on this effort.  The laboratory also conducted tests in milk sanitation.

Margaret Reimer, the camp nurse hired on a full-time basis as one of the county nurses, (her salary contributed to the special health revolving fund), visited homes in her part of Harrison County.   She routinely made visits to all maternity homes of infants and preschool children.  On one occasion “she discovered children and pigs eating from the same dish.”  Encountering often overwhelming conditions, she noted, “It leaves a person helpless.  There is so little you can do outside of teaching them health habits and talking to the parents, except remember them in prayer to our Lord, who so perfectly understands the hearts of children, that he might somehow give them a better life.” (Letter from Margaret Reimer to Albert Gaeddert, December 26, 1945 in Haury p. 7)