I posted this in the Charities thread in GQ but it promptly killed that thread, so the issue gets a thread of its own:
Recently I was riding up the subway escallator into the Pentagon City Shopping Mall when I was assaulted by a cute little girl who couldn’t have been more than 10 years old. Okay, she could have been older- I’m not a good judge of age. My pointy is that she reminded me of little Cindy Lou Who from Whoville. She was strategically posted at the escallator platform thus denying escallator passengers the opportunity of turning around or taking a detour to avoid her.
Turns out she was asking for spare change for her school (uniforms I think, I’m not really sure because I whizzed past her at approximately the speed of light). I have also seen children (not teenagers, mind you, but little children) walking up and down the dividing islands on major hiways & poking their heads into the car windows of hapless motorists stopped at traffic lights, presumably doing the same thing.
What’s going on with school budgets lately that they have to ask the kids to walk the streets begging for spare change?? What would the school do if one of these kids were to get her dress caught in the escallator or hit by a car during their collection rounds? Seems like child labor to me. Wait a minute- nobody’s getting paid- make that child slavery.
I would like to make some contributions to schools in need, especially knowing that my $ would go to a school in my area, instead of to who knows where. Maybe next time I’ll ask Little Cindy Lou Who what the name of her school is and offer to send a donation directly to the school in her name. That would make me feel better than giving it directly to the kids, who probably use it to feed their skittles habit anyway.
I don’t have any kids, but would be interested in hearing from parents as to whether schools really ask them to have their children do this.
My children have never been asked to do so. In fact, the elementary school (and perhaps the middle school as well, though I don’t know for sure) has a prohibition against going door-to-door for fundraisers unless the child is accompanied by an adult.
I have encountered it, though. I see groups all the time in one particularly dangerous place where they walk up and down along a fence that runs along the median. Cars stop there for a light, the kids run down the row as far as they can until the light changes and then start again at the top. I certainly wouldn’t allow my preteen to play alongside the roadway like that and I don’t think the Little League or anyone else should encourage it either. I refuse to give them money for the sole reason that I don’t want to encourage the practise.
I have always found that kind of activity reprehensible. What are school administrators, teachers and most importantly parents thinking? Don’t the possible risks of assault or accidental injury (or even death) far outweigh any kind of entrepreneurial or school spirit benefits that may be gained by these activities.
How is it even justifiable to organize these children to solicit money from complete strangers (in most cases) when most of them are barely near the driving age?
I find the entire process humiliating and disgusting and I am frankly embarassed for each and every one of these kids I see. My heart goes out to these kids who are essencially being taught to panhandle instead of where to find Bolivia on a world map.
When I was in grade 5 my homeroom teacher along with other teachers in the school volunteered their classes to sell chocolate bars. I don’t recall if the proceeds would have gone towards an overhead projector or some more chalk for the school, that’s irrelevant. The winning class, the class that sold the most chocolates, was to awarded a pizza party. I was offended by the entire process and refused to participate. This being the start of the year, my teacher took an instant dislike to me for the rest of the school year. (Fuck her, I thought. I ran into her 10 years later and she turned fat and ugly with thick glasses.) I hated the idea on a couple of levels. First, I did not like the idea of being turned into some begging urchin going door to door to sell chocolates. Second, I did not think it was appropriate to have a pizza party at school - as if I don’t get fed at home and I need the school’s charity to feed my pizza. Now understand, I did not come from a rich home. We were pretty poor at that point in my life. Still my parents managed to instill in me a little dignity and self respect. I was in school to learn math and literature and geography. I was not there to learn to panhandle. My only regret is that my parents did not speak english well enough then to explain to educate my ignorant teacher the same concepts regarding a child’s dignity and the school’s responsibility to instill and protect them. I am certainly not going to miss that chance should the same scenario present itself with my kids.
It is not just the children who beg, sometimes the have these fundraisers for nursery schools and the parents do the begging at work.
Did this crap start with the Girl Scouts and cookies? I remember doing this in Girl Scouts. They told you all about how it was good for character, etc. We also sold popcorn for school. I was never sure why we were raising money, but they had the peer pressure and prizes tweaked rather well to make most kids want to sell a lot.
Why does this continue? It is teaching kids something. One time about 4 kids came to my door claiming to gather for a charity. They had an old, beatup spiral notebook and a can that was covered in construction paper with the name of the supposed charity in crayon. They seemed to be making up stuff about the charity as they spoke and were nudging each other outrageously. They already knew how to be con artists and they were grade shool age.
my experiences: My son has done the school fundraisers, he’s saved up the entire amount (ranging from $300 - $450) to go on band trips from Michigan to New York, DC and Florida. He’s proud to have done so, and it taught some valuable lessons in planning, responsibility, salesmanship, people skills etc.
However, on every single one of his door to door activities, I was there. I don’t care that he was (up to) 14 years old, I was there. He was under strict orders not to enter any house, and I was outside in a car if he did. (I’d have gone up there, too…)
Doesn’t answer anyone else’s posts, just offers another viewpoint…
Quicksilver wrote:My heart goes out to these kids who are essencially being taught to panhandle instead of where to find Bolivia on a world map.
In my freshman year of highschool (in Maine) it was decided by someone that our annual band trip should take us to Montreal. It was a very expensive proposition and we were pushed very hard to bring in money from various fundraisers. There was a big guilt trip for people who didn’t “pull their weight.” I happened to live in a very rural area (an unorganized township; we were bussed into town for school) where my closest neighbor was half a mile away. I couldn’t go door-to-door if I wanted to. I really resented the pressure to sell tickets, the insinuation that I was freeloading, and the fact that we spent more time talking about raising money than we did playing music. I finally quit the band rather than feel guilty.
As it turned out, I didn’t miss anything much. On the first night one of the kids was caught with pot in his hotel room and everyone had to go home early.
But I was left with the very strong belief that children should not be asked to be fundraisers.
Our area not only discourages fundraisers of this sort, we also no longer have a “paperboy”. It used to be the paperboy would come to your house to collect your newspaper money. Now it is all sent directly in to the paper, since a girl was murdered collecting for the paper a few years ago. It’s dangerous and downright stupid.
My kids are involved in a few groups that do fundraising of different kinds
Girl Scouts- Cookie sales don’t bother me, mostly because I know a lot of people who start calling me in Sept to ask when the sale starts. No work or even real selling involved ( just order taking)
2)Cub Scouts- bake sales and car washes -no door-to-door, not even asking people to buy- put up signs and customers come
3)Hockey-parents pay registration fee and are given raffle tickets to either sell to others or put their own names on.
4)Little League- local Mc Donald’s donates a percentage of sales during a certain time period
5)School (private)- everything from candy bars ( I just buy the box myself) to Halloween parties, Bingo nights,pizza luches, and raffles.
The one thing I will never let my kids do is " panhandle" There are only two kinds of groups that I see do this. One is sports teams who often have signs saying “help us get to Florida” etc. My attitude is " help yourselves get to Florida" - that is, have a car wash or something where people get something in return rather than begging. The other type is service groups-the Knights of Columbus looking for donations for a children’s hospital, the volunteer ambulance, the community patrol. Those groups seeking flat out donations don’t bother me as much because the donations are not for their individual benefit. The members of the ambulance corps don’t get any personal benefit from the donations, the end users of the ambulance do.
Taught to panhandle? I’ve never, ever heard of anyone encouraging kids to panhandle. Anyone who encourages this should be beaten with the pan.
Anyhow, we do have a fundraiser twice a year at my school (I teach middle school). At the beginning of the year they sell magazine subscriptions. At the end of the year, it’s candy. Why? Well, partly so we can go to Disneyland. At the end of the school year we have a trip to the Magic Kingdom for everyone who has maintained a decent citizenship grade. Those who’ve been good little boys and girls go; those who haven’t don’t. Seems kinda strange to me, but I like it. I’ve gotten to go twice now. I’m in charge of a bus full of kids, but once we’re there, Ruffian and I get to go do whatever while the kids go off and play. Fun for everyone.
Sometimes there is extra money, I recall (though the trip does take tens of thousands of dollars). I think the ASB gets to decide what to do with that extra money.
Now, I do realize that a trip to Disneyland isn’t a normal part of the curriculum. But many schools do have fundraisers for things that they genuinely need and can’t afford. Tired of seeing kids on the streets raising money for school? Well, then pester your local state and federal representatives for more money for the schools. They certainly need it. (While you’re at it, pester them for higher teacher wages, too )
These tales of kids soliciting funds (not selling “band candy” but just walking up and asking strangers for money) sounds suspiciously like a bit of half-baked entrepreneurism. I can’t imagine a school raising funds by having kids go and beg for money. The liability issues are unreal. I can, however, imagine a kid thinking “Hey! If I ask strangers for money to help my school, I’ll bet some will give it to me!”
When I was just out of high school, one of my buddies (I’d known him in HS) was living in an apartment by himself and going to college. It seems that his spending had outstripped his limited means, and that while he’d paid all his utilities, rent, etc., he was short on groceries until his next Social Security check arrived (his dad died when he was a kid, and the SS money was to support him while he went to college).
Since this was in November and several food drives had already begun operation, we (several friends and I) cleaned up, dressed up, and went on a food drive as members of the [Local] College Young Christian People’s Association (several of us carried Bibles to lend credibility to the slightly absurd moniker of our organization). At my suggestion, we canvassed wealthy neighborhoods only – fewer canned peas and less guilt about people giving up stuff they might need. We collected enough groceries to keep “Bobo” (his real nickname – I can’t remember his actual name) in grub until his next check arrived. We really were collecting food for the needy. It’s just that the “needy”, in this case, was a single individual.
I did the door-to-door thing selling Girl Scout cookies a few times. One year I sold enough to finance a week at camp. I don’t remember how many boxes that was, and my mom and I swore we’d never do it again after it was over.
One of the local Brownie troops sets up a table outside a grocery store to sell. Some stores don’t allow this, but it works great for them; people always have money when they go there, right? I always buy a few boxes, having been on the other side of the deal. Besides, they’re cute. And I love Thin Mints.
As for band-type fundraising, the stuff we had to sell was always overpriced crap. I mean, it was REALLY BAD stuff. Why anybody bought it is beyond me.
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