Christy - several people suggested either air-freighting clothes etc out to them, or getting them taken over there - and an air stewardess even offered to take out a suitcase full of clothes for them - but these offers were never even acknowledged, let alone taken up. Buying new was the only option, it seemed.
I do accept that they would have needed to buy some things for the baby - being born so early would have meant he needed smaller clothes - but they wouldn't have needed the big-ticket items, like a buggy, cot, car seat etc until he was fit to be discharged, so there was no urgency to acquiring them. And as it turned out, he was airlifted back to the UK, and went straight into hospital here, so there would have been no need whatsoever for any of these items in the US.
If I were them, I would be making all the accounts to do with this fundraising public. I would want to show exactly how much had been raised, and to itemise any expenditure that had been made (as much as is practical), so I could show how much was left over, to go to charity. I would hate to think that people might suspect that I was diverting the money to other uses (people have mentioned them buying white goods, for example - I'd want to show that that hadn't come from the money raised).
They aren't going to have kept perfect records - they did have other, more important stuff going on at the time - but it would not be too hard for them, or a knowledgeable friend, to put together a set of accounts.
I do accept that people gave their money of their own free will. But if their decision to donate was based on a false premise (that the baby's medical bills were not going to be covered by the insurance), or if the money was not just used for essential purchases, and covering their basic expenses at home in the UK, but also for them to have a bit of a spending spree - how is that fair to the people who donated? Would they necessarily have donated if they had known that the money wasn't going to be spent on essentials/medical bills?
The fact that the one person who did ask for her donation back was subjected to a storm of abuse, and threats does not look good - and may well have put others off asking for their donations back.
I think crowd funding, and charity fundraising are good things - but when a story like this comes up, that raises so many questions about the way the money raised was spent, and whether it has been spent as the donors would have expected, it could tarnish other fundraising efforts by making people more suspicious and less likely to donate. That can't be a good thing.