Do you like donating/giving at Christmas time?

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Originally Posted by SLO_Town
During the Christmas season I start shopping for things at "Food For Less", a budget grocery store in a town near us. It caters to the less fortunate. Twice in the last three years I have paid the entire grocery bill for someone who seems like a good person, but clearly has limited financial resources.

Two years ago when I last did this, it was for a nice Mexican woman. From the looks of her grocery collection I could tell she was trying to muster up the nicest Christmas dinner she could afford - and that wasn't much.

The woman cashier actually started to cry at my generosity. I felt great for an entire month afterwards, and I enjoyed that reward for just $100 +/-.

FWIW,

Scott

That sounds awesome!
Considering doing this myself now that you mentioned it.

At least I'll know the funds are going EXACTLY where I expect them to, and not to pad the wallet of some middle-man
coffee2.gif
 
If I give, it's to someone I know. There are way too many charities that don't do what they claim. My hard earned money is not for them.

When I die, I'm leaving my money to specific, younger individuals (I don't have any children) . Not to someone I don't know.
 
Bought some toys for tots when I was at WM recently, ended up spending about 10X on the kids than what I spent on the few items I had stopped to pick up for myself!
There was a giving tree at my last job and I would usually go nuts on it, especially for the gifts that were not toys for kids up to 8 years old and would end up looking lonely on the tree in mid December...I figured if a 16 year old kid was asking for 44 waist size jeans for Xmas, he probably really needed those pants. And my wife and I would also stick $20 in a pocket and hope it actually made it to the kid.
I will drop money in a red bucket as long as my hands aren't full...I used to do $20 every time I passed one because lots of my childhood toys came from Salvation Army, but I guess I am not as sentimental anymore and am usually $5 or under now.
Will probably also donate online to Danny Kaye's old charity before Xmas.
 
Originally Posted by Lolvoguy
Originally Posted by SLO_Town
During the Christmas season I start shopping for things at "Food For Less", a budget grocery store in a town near us. It caters to the less fortunate. Twice in the last three years I have paid the entire grocery bill for someone who seems like a good person, but clearly has limited financial resources.

Two years ago when I last did this, it was for a nice Mexican woman. From the looks of her grocery collection I could tell she was trying to muster up the nicest Christmas dinner she could afford - and that wasn't much.

The woman cashier actually started to cry at my generosity. I felt great for an entire month afterwards, and I enjoyed that reward for just $100 +/-.

FWIW,

Scott

That sounds awesome!
Considering doing this myself now that you mentioned it.

At least I'll know the funds are going EXACTLY where I expect them to, and not to pad the wallet of some middle-man
coffee2.gif



Lolvoguy:

I will reply here just in case anyone wants to do the same thing.

1) I had to shop there several times in order to find the right person/situation.
2) Be careful that you don't accidentally insult someone.

In other words, don't try to do this on your first attempt. Understand?

Scott
 
I have a hard time donating or giving to the food bank as I see what kind of people draw from it. Poor life choices of others are not my problem. If I know someone and their story, I am happy to help.
 
Originally Posted by StevieC
Only to those with low administration costs.


Sadly, that's why we quit giving to the Salvation Army, and we had been very giving to them.

We lived in Florida at the time and some may be familiar with this story. We had an ethically challenged County Commissioner who had been given a "job" by the local non-profit chapter of the Salvation Army. They were paying him $95K per year. Why they were paying him, and for what, nobody knew nor could they find out. As a Commissioner, the County was paying him 90K per year. This had been going on for a long time. When this situation came to light, there were more than just a few people upset. Long story short, only after donations dropped like a rock did they finally take action and revamp the chapter. But it still took massive pressure to get the Salvation Army to act. He finally "resigned" and they made some personnel changes. We are now selective as to who gets our charity.
 
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Originally Posted by Cujet
If I give, it's to someone I know. There are way too many charities that don't do what they claim. My hard earned money is not for them.

Picking out the good ones can be tough. Plenty of "non-profit charities" pay big salaries, spend extravagant amounts of money on office furnishings and hotels and travel and "conference retreats," spend large amounts of the donations on advertising and "awareness" to get more donations to pay for those offices and salaries, etc.

It also gets more difficult every year to give to charities when the government keeps forcing you to give your tax money to its choice of welfare, and often giving it to people who shouldn't be getting it.

There's some local/regional church-based (not that that matters) charities here that I see first-hand some of the good they do, so I tend to like those more than big national ones that are often ran more as a for-profit corporation than as a charity.

I have a soft spot for Toys for Tots.
For one thing, it's hard for a charity that mainly deals in donated toys to become corrupt.
And who can say no to The Few, The Proud wanting to give a little kid a toy for Christmas.
 
Originally Posted by Sierra048
Originally Posted by StevieC
Only to those with low administration costs.


Sadly, that's why we quit giving to the Salvation Army, and we had been very giving to them.

We lived in Florida at the time and some may be familiar with this story. We had an ethically challenged County Commissioner who had been given a "job" by the local non-profit chapter of the Salvation Army. They were paying him $95K per year. Why they were paying him, and for what, nobody knew nor could they find out. As a Commissioner, the County was paying him 90K per year. This had been going on for a long time. When this situation came to light, there were more than just a few people upset. Long story short, only after donations dropped like a rock did they finally take action and revamp the chapter. But it still took massive pressure to get the Salvation Army to act. He finally "resigned" and they made some personnel changes. We are now selective as to who gets our charity.

I try to practice charity in one form or another each day in what I do for others but I do try to donate some cash here/there to low admin charities when asked. It's said that a lot of them have become huge businesses nowadays and the constant peddling for spare change at retailers by some of these charities really bugs me.
mad.gif
 
One thing that's ticked me off about some charities is if you donate to certain ones non-anonymously, you can find yourself put on a list and then get bombarded with phone calls from a bunch of other ones.

I know people with basic landline phones who now pay an extra $100+ every year to have caller ID on it practically for the sole reason that they were a good person and donated to some charities but now get constantly hammered with calls from other charities and have stopped answering their phone completely unless they recognize the caller number.
 
I give to my employees and certain people I know who could use the help.

The Salvation Army will never get a penny from me. I have seen first-hand how poorly they treat the homeless and how little they do.

The only homeless they want to help are the addicts, and only because they get a county and state check for "helping" these people using other unpaid addicts. For those who are not addicts, they only help those people who have a minimum 6 month job history and can pay a percentage of their check for housing in the "shelter". Anyone truly homeless is maybe given one night, and then expelled. While volunteering, I witnessed multiple unused rooms and beds after they turned away at least 20 people under the excuse all of their beds were full.

Beyond that, SA has been caught in being heavily involved in influencing anti-homeless regulations that eliminate the "competition" leaving SA as the dominant recipient of funds for helping the homeless. They've helped make it so bad that people have been threatened with arrest for giving food to the homeless. SA always remains mysteriously unaffected by the anti-help regulations.

Salvation Army is second only to the Red Cross as being a huge scam.

Do your own research, and find better ways and better places to donate.
 
I call up the local animal shelters and ask them what they need, go shopping, and take them a truckload of food, litter, paper towels, etc. I feel so bad for all the dogs and cats sitting in cages at Christmas. I can't adopt them all, but I can help make sure their bellies are full.
 
Every year my wife and I sign up to be "Christmas elves" for a local charity. This charity gives a big care package to poor families, it consists of some presents for everyone in their family, a small Christmas tree and some vouchers for groceries/food. We do the actual delivery to one of those families and it's always great to see how happy they are when we arrive. We're doing it tomorrow morning actually.
 
I give $$ to the three guys who come on the sanitation truck 3 times every week no matter the weather, and to the regular postal guy who comes 4 or 5 times a week all year long. That is about it.
 
I set money aside regularly, and keep track of it, (it's still there) however recently I have not felt compelled to give. Happy to give freely though.
 
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