MIL gave children gifts from a homeless charity for christmas!

I think this thread really demonstrates the worst of charity giving. Your MIL accepting charity she doesn’t need because she can; posters demanding you report her to the charity like they have any powers or ability to punish; other posters now deciding they’ll never donate as if they should be able to control the outcomes of their donations.

this is why I don’t think charities should exist.

Miserliness is the worst form of greed. What your MIL did is utterly despicable and I would be telling her so.

Excellent post👏 It started when David Cameron announced his “Big Society” & shifted responsibility towards charities rather than the government lots of people have forgotten this.

i bought it up to dh. He completley didnt understand the situation and brushed it off.

The apple doesnt fall far from the tree does it

Yep my son is severely disabled and goes to a special school and there arec loads of charities that give to the school wether the kids need it or not ,
I saw an advert on one of the charity pages a few days before xmas saying they had loads of children's toys to give away and to.please contact them if you needed or wanted some.

I donated a lot of expensive Lego to a charity toy drive this year. I am know concerned it won’t go to a family in need

As I've already said, it sounds like she's using a community fridge/pantry rather than what people often refer to as a 'foodbank' You don't need to be on the bones of your backside to use them. They're there to prevent excess food going to landfill.
I'd suggest your DH has a conversation with his mum as to where the gifts came from, there's no need for all the 'she's got plenty of money' etc. There is likely to be a very simple explanation (not that you'll like it!) For those shouting that they are never giving to charity again, based on one version of events where the OP doesn't know how it occurred, that's ridiculous. People receiving these gifts don't need to prove they are 'worthy' in the normal scheme of things these giving initiatives cover all sorts of circumstances. I've had Christmases where I had no money at all, it all went on bills. You cant pay rent with a toy donation. More recently my washing machine blew up. We were referred by a friend who knows that once the bills are paid each month we have nothing left, a small charity bought us a washing machine. We have a nice house, a car, I work full time. So does that mean I should refuse assistance? Cost of living means that people don't 'have' money left over.
The other 'issue' you have is that she's asking for gifts without reciprocating, that's a conversation for future. My family stopped doing gifts for anything other than small children years ago. My mum and dad never did gifting, they didn't want to, to the extent that when my dad died we discovered he intentionally kept his savings below the level required to receive housing benefit as he'd decided it was his 'due' its life. You don't have to accept other people's ways of giving at Christmas, but it's easily resolved rather than making assumptions

Not detracting from the gift situation (which is really shameful,behaviour from MIL) but are you sure it’s not a community larder rather than a food bank? We have these locally and they’re open to anyone, to prevent food waste

I think you should discuss it with your MIL there's a good chance the charity had excess and she was either given them with them knowing she wasn't in dire need and/or she gave a donation for them. People don't realise how small scale charities often are, they tend to be overwhelmed by donations at Christmas and just need to get them handed out to anyone. My DM worked at a children's hospital when I was young and she'd bring home piles of toys and chocolates at Christmas that people had donated for the sick children but there were not that many children in as inpatients over Christmas and there were far too many things donated. If the staff didn't take them home would have just gone in the bin as they didn't have the storage space.

Excellent point, well worth stressing. Foodbanks came in when the government decided it was better for vulnerable people to be assisted by charities (so, basically, if better off people felt like being kind) rather than by the state using money from the public purse, where the meeting of essential needs was guaranteed.
They took off at the point the government made cuts to benefits, particularly, introducing UC with its waiting periods and payment gaps. The government were quite open about the role they wanted the third sector to take in a system where they reduced the amount of 'tax payers money' allocated to poorer people. All very Victorian.

I wouldn’t invite her over next Christmas.
Just maybe if she has a good explanation as to why she deprived children in need of presents.
what a nightmare. She has to be confronted

You can't really police where charitable donations go and I am sure there were enough presents to for the genuinely needy children. There is no point going into battle with your MIL. Just support your DH as he deals with her. She'll probably get worse as she gets older.

Just to clarify; the gvt does NOT run foodbanks. They are charitable organisations of one kind or another, often run by Churches or other Community groups some aligned to the Trussel Trust.
It is weird enough that some me.bers of the population of the 6th richest country in the world are reduced to using foodbanks it would be even weirder if the gvt were running fairbanks, rather than ensuring that people have enough money to live on.

Exactly this. I hope you’re ok now?

@GAJLY you will never donate anything again? In your eyes people need to be starving and crawling to collect their charity ?
The deserving poor comes to mind.

nobody can judge this woman based on the op’s opinion - there’s three sides to every story, her version, mil’s version and the truth.
this woman has been hung, drawn and quartered on the basis of one person’s possibly embellished story for clicks or at the very least an emotive tale skewed in favour of the op’s version. Everyone has jumped on her narrative and ran with it, talking about reporting her.
I used Foodbanks and other charities during a time of dire need.
it was an horrendous time, terrifying, humiliating and devastating.
I was working. None of my friends or family would have guessed things had got that bad (through no fault of my own).

I looked good and still dressed well, my clothes didn’t suddenly turn into generic rags when things went wrong.
i kept myself to myself so nobody knew how much I was bearing.
years later when I was able to tell people, everyone was shocked and horrified and told me to come to them next time.

sometimes our pride can get the better of us and many Foodbank users are utterly ashamed when they get there and most never thought they would reach this rock bottom.

to say you will never donate again in the basis of one story is a sad overreaction.

Could she have bought the gifts herself but just used one of their tags?

And those are exactly the labels that my local charity shop had on their wrapped Christmas presents they were sitting on the counter to be sold. I’m not saying that the OP’s mother in law hasn’t behaved badly, but it’s also entirely possible that she bought the presents legitimately and in doing so was supporting the foodbank.

so she has seen through you op

what a messy relationship you have
you are as bad as each other

How awful and grabby. I know a couple of older people who are always on the look out for freebies. They aren’t wealthy but they heard from their own friends that community pantry’s don’t ask questions.

If she is using these sorts of services ‘for whatever reason’ shame on her.

It's not that easy to access a foodbank. How is she doing it and why haven't you put a stop to it?

I have always had well paid jobs, own my own home and drive a car. However, there have been times in my life when I was really up shit creek. I was once conned out of a huge amount of money and thought I was going to end up homeless. I was lucky that I was young enough to be able to take on extra work - many others who were scammed lost their pensions, life savings and felt too old to start again. I also had family who would help with food sometimes. If not, I would have had to use food banks.If any of my neighbours had seen me doing that they would have thought I was conning the system because I still had my house and car etc and a well paid job.

I wouldn’t give them back - they may have no space to store them and you are then making your MILs odd behaviour their problem. My DSs school runs a pop up shop every Christmas to gift presents to those who can’t afford it. Most are referred by food banks and other charities but you can just rock up and help yourself - it works on trust and unfortunately you will always get one or two people taking the piss. However the alternative is to ask everyone coming to show proof of need which is potentially humiliating and will put people off. Your MIL could easily have gone to this type of set up and not have to prove anything. Your DH needs to tackle this with her - “Mum, are you struggling for money as we noticed the GCs gifts were donated from a charity”.

I’m personally very anti confrontation. Partly because this will affect your relationship with your husband. I’d say nothing to her at the moment. If you can afford to, make a donation to the charity, and donate any of the toys that are not going to be missed by your children. Then, tell her, and put in a nice letter or card to her your intention for Christmases ‘Yet To Come’.
Something like “Dearest MIL, from now on we have decided not to exchange gifts at this time of year. Instead we are making a donation in your name to [insert name of homeless charity] “ and push the point home.

Well this makes me want to never donate to food banks again. I thought my donations went to people in poverty not people like me who can afford it but rather not pay! Imagine buying an expensive present for a child in need, which was not given to a child in need! That in itself is fraud.