Sorry. Ideally, you shouldn’t donate to charity anything that you would NOT want to use yourself, is what I meant to say.
Teens SHOP or at least browse Spencers, but they dont buy much since few have very much money. What they do is talk their parents into buying stuff.
I don’t know what your experience was at a teen, but I shopped with my own money – I had an after school job.
No, the point of a charity drive is to help others, not as an excuse to dump off your old crap on someone else. Seriously, are you saying that because they’re poor, they should just be grateful for whatever they’re given? Dude, that’s pretty cold.
Spencer’s has fair quality affordable stuff a lot of adults just don’t “get”. In short they are as popular as they ever were and will continue to be so as long as those things remain true.
My niece informed me that where her children go to school, each parent gets the school supply list. The list is larger than the child will need for the school year. (Think 6 glue sticks not four.) First day of school all the kids dump their school supplies into a pile in their classroom. Each child then draws from it the actual amount of supplies they will need. That is when they can put their names on their stuff. The leftovers are stashed for mid year replacements or passed to other classrooms if need be. Note, the kids don’t necessarily get back what they brought in nor do you really HAVE to bring anything in or completely fill the list if you feel you cannot afford it. Forced sharing of school supplies with those less fortunate. I called it state sanctioned theft. Opting out isn’t really an option. This is the local public school system doing this. So much for the excitement of getting a “special” backpack or engraved pencils.
Do you maybe want to rethink that?
Of course opting out is an option, for people who either can’t afford it, or who have a Grinchlike heart condition that prevents them from helping out those who can’t afford it. We do this every year in my classroom, pretty much as you describe. To do it any other way would be a logistical nightmare of the sort that people who aren’t responsible for maintaining supplies for a couple dozen eight-year-olds might not understand.
It’s totally ridiculous to call it theft. What you might want to call it is ridiculous that tax dollars don’t adequately equip schools to perform their function.
I don’t know - I find buying new stuff to give as being vaguely patronizing. Giving your old stuff is just handing stuff down, like you’d do with a sibling or a cousin. It’s sharing between equals. Whereas buying something new is like saying, I’m rich and you’re not; here, let me rub it in your face.
Maybe it’s just me, but I have no problem taking stuff someone wasn’t using anyway - hell, half my apartment used to be furnished with stuff I found left on sidewalks. If someone bought me something new, though, I’d feel like I owed them something.
If someone who you personally meet face-to-face buys you something, then, yeah, you are right—it might be awkward.
But the whole point of the OP is that the charity is anonymous. So there’s no patronizing,no rubbing it in your face, and no feelings that you owe something in return.
I drank
So…parents have to buy more than one backpack, and those are put in a pile and redistributed? :dubious:
I think you meant “bAggers can be choosers”
Hey oh!
So, what backpack would you be donating if you were to be donating a backpack? It doesn’t sound like you have a used one.
I don’t have any kids and no used backpacks to donate. How would I donate?
OP, you were there and I wasn’t, but is it at all possible the dirty looks were either for something unrelated to the specific backpacks or not even pointed at you at all? For example, I know I’ve walked into the middle of nasty fights before and thought everyone was made at me when it was really that they were all fighting with each other. Or people being extra snippy because you put something down on the red backpack table instead of the purple backpack table because some people can be absolute dicks when they have a little power.
Just another point, I wouldn’t let a dog wear a backpack my kids had used for a year. It’s going to have holes in it, stickers on it, stuff written on it, and it’s going to smell. And I’d be lucky if they could even find the thing.
These aren’t grown up people but children who have to go to school each day with the deck already stacked against them. Chances are they are already wearing plenty of thrift store clothes, eating food bank lunches, and have limited school supplies. A new backpack or something else new might just be the little thing that makes them excited for school and feel like less of an outsider. Within a short time the new backpack will become worn and will be probably handed down or used multiple years, so let the kid enjoy the feeling of having something new and special.
I seriously doubt that they’re redistributing backpacks and you can just bring your own special pencils on day two or else just not add them to the pile.
They were laughing and joking with each other and greeted me nicely until I handed them the bags with the backpacks. The woman who took them produced a severe cat-butt face and remarked, “Oh, Spencers” as if she thought they were a step above getting them out of a landfill. Maybe they thought I should have bought backpacks from Coach.
Well, that sucks.
On the plus side, I bet the recipients will like them, possibly more so for snotty adults expressing contempt!
I used to frequent the Spencers at the mall when I was a teenager in the '80s and I assure you the novelty/adult gifts in the back of the store were a big part of the draw. You just had to act like you didn’t realize that that’s where the naughty items were! I’m sorry, I had no idea this is where you kept the sex game dice and edible candy panties! I’ll just move along over here to the lava lamps and black-light fluorescent posters…
Huh. I wonder if she associates the store with low-quality bachelorette party tchotchkes, the way I do. If she saw the bags, she may have thought the backpacks were going to have big-breasted cartoon women in bikinis on them or something. (I admit I checked Spence’s website to see if their Harly Quinn backpacks had a sexualized HQ cartoon on them, given the latest movie depiction of the character. They don’t.)
School workers poring through donation pools redistributing backpacks is no basis for a system of supplies.