When the four-plex I lived in burned down in 1990, The Red Cross provided assistance. Someone showed up while the fire was being fought and stayed with us residents the whole night. They brought drinks and snacks. I think they brought the lawn chairs we sat in across the street watching the fire. I remember they offered at least one night in a hotel but I didn’t want to do that. I had gotten in touch with my best friend and stayed with him. They gave me vouchers for K-Mart and a thrift store to get clothes and another voucher to get groceries and toiletries. When I found a new apartment a few weeks later, I called them and someone brought me a brand new mattress and box springs. There may have been more but that’s what I remember. That night I was given a green blanket (I don’t know why - it was August). I still have it in my linen closet and haven’t used it since that time period but I can’t give it away.
I’ve been the beneficiary of charity sex.
Oh yeah. Red Cross was here when we were in the path of a bad tornado. We didn’t need the vouchers but the snacks and water was appreciated m
Not directly from an organization but, once upon a time, I was trying to buy a handful of groceries when my card was declined. Walking back through the parking lot, the woman who was behind me caught up with my food, having paid for it once I left.
I’ve had two episodes of poverty in my life and during both benefited from charity.
I am currently benefiting from charity - I have had some major health problems this year, including two trips to the ER and some major surgery. The hospital system I’m getting all the TLC from is covering my costs above insurance in regards to the treatment they have given me. That still leaves me on the hook for ambulance some “independent contractor” services but that’s still just huge - for me it’s the difference between still having the means to pay my bills in a timely manner and complete bankruptcy.
I’ve eaten at a lot of missions and soup kitchens and used to sleep in rescue missions sometimes when I was on the road a lot.
When I was a child, my father worked in Indonesia as a doctor for the Lutheran World Mission, and they used to send gifts to us kids a few times a year - used clothes and books, mostly, but sometimes toys from the US.
My older daughter won a Michigan State Alumni academic scholarship, which gave her a full ride, including housing and meals, for 8 semesters. She earned her invitation through a great high school record and SAT scores, and she competed for the scholarship through a series of tests, but it was still something given to her for free that would have cost us about $120,000 over four years (realistically, she’d have had to go to school somewhere else).
I have both donated to, and received help from, charities. When I first donated to the food shelves, I thought “There but for the grace of God, go I.”
Well, I would not have survived last year without help from the local food charity, which consists mainly of volunteers who make the rounds of supermarkets and produce farms to bring in what is offered. They also take donated money and spend it on foods they can buy in bulk, such as rice, to parse out to us needy folks. If the volunteers didn’t do this, plenty of food would be going to waste.
I have also donated to many other charities simply because I saw them doing good in the community. I steer clear of ones with high overhead costs and polished begging formats, like Salvation Army, in favor of ones who directly help an immediate community.
Having been a recipient (and being very close to needing to be a recipient again), thanks to everyone, including a couple of people here who helped me directly last winter. I am currently housed, and am trying to find gainful work as opposed to the work I am doing which only keeps me housed and nothing else. Fingers crossed that I do.
We received an expensive bit of veterinary care with a big offset from a charitable organization because we’re both on fixed incomes.
At the time I had breast cancer, we could have requested rides, some free services, a stipend, and hotel costs during treatment, but we were both working and wanted to leave those funds for others.
I’ve had friends, students, and counseling clients benefit from free chemical dependency treatment, counseling, education, job training, housing, utilities, transportation, food, clothing, and medical care through charities. Some have received pet food and toys. I have a family member with a disability who received textbooks and tuition. Internationally, I’ve worked with people whose housing, tuition, and medical care were paid by donations, as well as women whose microfinance collectives were seeded via charitable donations.
OK, back when I had active cancer (it’s now been in complete remission for over a year) it was refractory, which meant it survived the first two lines of chemotherapy. I got those in my hometown of Missoula, Montana, but further treatment would require going to MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, for CAR T-cell therapy. The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society had already been giving me money but CAR T-cell therapy requires both a few weeks of inpatient care and then staying a minimum distance from the hospital that did the infusion a few more weeks, which works out to being in a specific region of Houston proper for just about a month if everything goes well. Further, the patient requires a 24-hour caretaker, so that’s two adults at the absolute minimum.
(Spoiler: It all went very well. I had no serious side-effects, and the PET scan just after the requisite month post-infusion was what showed me to be in remission.)
That’s beyond the kind of hotel stay I can afford, but fortunately there’s a kind of charity just for people in the position I was in: Charitable apartment sublets. A charity (a church in my case) rents an apartment within the special zone and allows a succession of charity cases to use it at a reduced rate with presumably less hassle than the landlord would impose on an actual renter. The church also had a shuttle bus between the apartment complex and the hospital for routine appointments, of which there are many when you’re in the special outpatient period after a CAR T-cell infusion.
The therapy itself wasn’t charity, it was paid for at 100% by Cigna, due to the Centers of Excellence program Cigna has. This lead to a particularly stupid game of phone tag when the MD Anderson flunky refused to believe Cigna would pay for all of it and the Cigna flunky was just as adamant Cigna would. Yes: The insurance company was insisting it would pay and the hospital wasn’t having it. Had to set up a three-way call using speakerphone to settle that one. Cancer is a parade of idiocies.
Cigna even eventually paid for the accommodations, once I got through to enough of their employees that we didn’t have all of the documentation the insurance drones wanted because of the sublet arrangement my caretaker and I took advantage of.
I have not, but my brother survived on the streets for years with help from food banks and such. Unfortunately, living on the streets for too long can sometimes make mental health get worse, which was the case with him, but at least he was able to eat for many years.
When I was growing up, the local Evening Optimist organization sponsored a small hardball baseball league for kids who weren’t good enough to qualify for Little League.
How very Python-esque.
While my son was receiving various cancer treatments in Minneapolis, MN, we were able to stay at a American Cancer Society Hope Lodge at no cost. It was a beautiful facility but had MANY rules and restrictions. Otherwise it was a huge help to us.
Early in my adulthood, I was regular donor with similar organizations. What city were you in?
Mr. Legend’s oncologist ordered a PET scan right after he was diagnosed, because his cancer was found in a bone and the CT he had at the hospital didn’t show any obvious signs in organs. The insurance company swore that we didn’t need a prior authorization, but the place that does the scans was adamant that they needed one because BCBS has a history of denying claims. I even offered to pay out of pocket* and fight with the insurance company later, but they wouldn’t accept that. He ended up with a bone scan instead, and because it’s worst-case scenario, he never did get the PET scan. I don’t even know who to be mad at!
*The out of pocket cost would have been $20,000 and made a real dent in our retirement savings, but I wasn’t necessarily thinking clearly in that situation. They did me a favor by saying no, really.