The shoebox appeal

[UglyJumper]

How come schools in this country continue supporting this project from the Samaritan's Purse, whose CEO Franklin Graham is a racist, xenophobic, homophobic, white American evangelist millionaire?

Currently there's not an alternative, well no large scale. Those vulnerable children will get nothing if we don't use that mechanism.

Personally I'm involved in a different project so don't do it these days, however I did weigh it up in the past

Ours goes through Blythswood - I thought that was Uk wide but maybe just Scotland and Northern Ireland?

Usually because they don’t know.
I have contacted a couple of schools who were doing it and provided information about the people behind this and in fairness they stopped doing it

I didn't know any of this. Do you have a link to more info? Spread the word.

How do you think a shoebox in exchange for evangelism is helping a vulnerable child?

Mary's Meals is a food alternative.

Right now though, children would be better off supporting children in this country instead of shipping a load of tatty boxes halfway round the world.

Of course there’s an alternative! There’s the Red Cross, Medecins sans frontiers, Oxfam, Good gifts, Refuge, your local homeless charity will have a scheme they run.

There are several charitable options that do not involve shipping western crap to muslim countries and supplying evangelical literature.

humanists.uk/humanism/humanism-today/humanists-doing/good-causes-and-charities/samaritans-purse/

Dds school does link to hope, which is non-evangelical.

Yanbu. But dd1 grammar are doing a direct Ukraine shoebox appeal this year. I was really pleased

Local school stopped it when I gave them the truth behind it all. There are alternatives.

Another vote for Mary’s Meals. They feed children every day in school, makes a huge difference to their attendance ( while they’re in school they’re not being made to work or worse) Their learning improves and the children feel valued. I’ve been in that school that provides the meals.
£15 feds a child for a school year.

There are alternatives. DD's secondary stopped it when I told them who was behind it.

Gosh the annual samaritans box thread comes round earlier every year.

Yes its run by fruit cake evangelicals, I'm not keen on it, I've not seen those who get so antsi about it set up a non sectarian equivalent which is partly why people use it. The evangelism usually consists of a tatty leaflet with the box which often won't even be in the local language.

I found alternatives - Marys Meals (if it still runs). local homeless/refuge charities often have schemes for donations. You have to look but most areas have smaller local organisations (which at a school level can increase engagement locally). Either way, for overseas donations - honestly money makes more sense.

For overseas donations its harder to find the equivalent and many of the big organisations have had mixed track records on how they treat women and girls (a biggie for me) and are also rooted in religion.

Not allowed. They are one of the few organisations that's threatened users on MN.

They are not nice.

Avoid.

I wasn't aware of it either. I used to love making up shoeboxes when I was at school. I was going to post a link to a story in the guardian but given PP said it's not allowed... google Christmas shoebox controversy.

my dd’s headteacher got quite angry when i questioned it (she has form for this) and demanded i provide proof of my “accusations”. Not really my job but i printed out a load of google results and handed them in.

Next time i saw her she told me the Samaritans were a well established good cause and she didn’t know ehat all that nonsense was about. Well yes, they are, and despite my atheism i would happily support any of their appeals because they do such a lot for the homeless. However Samaritan’s Purse are NOT the Samaritans. How she could not know this after years if supporting the cause made me despair.

Occalert

You have to be really careful posting about it on here. I'm one of the MNers who learned the hard way. Mumsnet, fortunately, weren't about to hand over my details. My posts were taken down, with my permission, in order to avoid repercussions. I didn't say anything controversial either.

Woah!

@ShowOfHands Sorry that happened to you

About 8/9 years ago they came into my kids school. I went to the head who was defensive and stuff the local branch want that involved with the founder and I shouldn't believe everything I read in the guardian. I did write to the governors with links to the hate speech against Hindus and Muslims (plenty of children of these fairies in school) and suggested that they were failing on their duties under I think Prevent rules by platforming religious extremism. One of governors says the head did change his view over time but he never mentioned to me again.

There was evidence that the boxes weren't just going to deprived children, they went to Antarctica at one stage where children had scientist parents on research projects. A poster on here received one for her child and was so confused why she was being sent soap.

They either don’t know, or think that kids getting shoeboxes is worth turning a blind eye. Some people also don’t have a problem with very conservative (with a small c) views.