Struggling with Christmas charity

[HouseArrest]

It used to be easier to give xboxes or PS2s. Many places that deal in used game systems (gamestop, eb games, etc.) would sell you dead systems. I used to buy 6-8 “dead” systems from which I could make 2-3 “live” systems to give away. But last year I heard from kids complaining that they got an x-box instead of a 360 which is very disheartening. Also, gamestop no longer sells dead systems, they trash them so it is harder and harder. At least this year we are asking the kids to take their presents home and put them under the tree so they have something to open on Christmas (and so we don’t hear so many ungrateful comments)

I wish apple could sell dead ipods for repair as well.

Hey maybe if you asked for them and told them it was for charity they’d give them to you. I don’t know how you’d prove it but it’s worth a shot. OR maybe this year all the kids getting the newest and best wouldn’t mind donating their older ones… just trying to keep your great idea alive!

 

[cthulhubryan]

Hey maybe if you asked for them and told them it was for charity they’d give them to you. I don’t know how you’d prove it but it’s worth a shot. OR maybe this year all the kids getting the newest and best wouldn’t mind donating their older ones… just trying to keep your great idea alive!

That is a great idea. I will try that. It’s really not hard to fix 'em up and kids do so love them.

 

[Appleby]

I would also propose that many of the poor are increasingly mainstreamed among more affluent families. Which means, the children are attending school with others who ALL have bikes or iPods, and they feel truly isolated in not having those things.

A new coat may make much more sense to an adult, but a child my feel different primarily because he or she doesn’t have a bike . . .

Just a thought . . .

They need to get over it, then. When I was a kid I did not expect to have every material goodie that the rich girl up the street had, because our parents had five daughters and everything had to be shared. When we were old enough to have working papers, they said, we could earn money and have goodies. Til then, no. Simply No.

We had a woman come to our Sunday School once begging for designer jeans and expensive electronics for “the less fortunate” and we set her straight in a gentle way – most of us were not buying those things for our own children and we did not see why “needy” kids should have them if their parents couldn’t afford them. And by the way, “the less fortunate” is a ridiculous phrase. “Fortune” is not something that angels dump by the basketful on people down below – and whether you are more or less “fortunate” does not depend on where you were standing when the basket was upended.

Last year I had 9 charities begging for stuff from me and they always wanted new, unwrapped, expensive loot. Except, of course, the Sally Ann. I give to them and to a local teen drop-in centre that wants basics for the kids plus candy and games and books – and for the babies in the program, baby toys and stuff. The rest of them I just say NO.