Project Handclasp was a humanitarian foreign assistance program of the United States Navy, started in 1962, that distributed materials and medical help.

[2] During the Vietnam War, Project Handclasp was a formal U.S. Navy program that coordinated the transportation and delivery of humanitarian and educational items to foreign countries on a space-available basis.

Sailors and Marines, giving them a chance to interact with the local people, building relationships and strengthening trust between the United States and the host nations.

[6] The primary purpose of Project Handclasp was to receive, collect, consolidate, and store humanitarian, educational, and goodwill material for transportation on naval vessels and distribution by U.S. Navy and Marine Corps personnel on behalf of American citizens to needy people overseas.

The types of material considered appropriate for distribution through Project Handclasp included: In 2017, a Naval Audit Service report identified numerous fiscal and ethical issues in the operation of the program.

The 2017 revision to OPNAVINST 5726.3E addressed “organizational and administrative shifts and fiscal and ethics regulations issues identified during a legal review of the program”.