To secretly fill a Christmas Charity shoebox with as good as new toys?

[ferriswheel]

I've filled an authentic one already. But all things considered I could do a great job of 'nearly new' version.

Or is this very bad karma?

Regarding boxes for the elderly. Our local hospital did a drive last year for toiletries, crossword books etc for elderly people admitted over Xmas. They were inundated, really successful. May be worth seeing if your hospital does something similar :-)

londonmummy Here in the NYC area the shelters take anything that help the people they serve. Speak to them. They will tell you what they need.

FWIW shelters here who serve families need gifts for birthdays and arts/crafts items so DC can do projects at home. A lot of homework involves the assumption that there are glue sticks, coloring pencils etc at home.

why do you celebrate Christmas?
what does it mean to you?
what does it mean for others?

But they are homophobic,it's not a matter of just thinking they are. Utterly unexceptable.

Frankly I think the whole don't give a shit all year but fill a random shoe box with crap at Christmas idea is distasteful and patronising. I'm sure needy families would rather have schools to go to,hot meals and clothes than random plastic crap and sweets.

I like the school in a bag idea or a simple donation to a good charity.

Unacceptable

Has anyone got a more recent link concerning samaritans purse? My son's school is participating in this. I want to send them a link but woukd rather its up to date as I think the charity claim they have "changed" to an extent since these reports.

Shoe Zone support it. I guess it's a nice way to get people to buy cheap shoes and get a box to fill in the run up to Christmas.Glossy Pinterest pics aplenty on how to fill your box.

There are so many other decent more effective charities to support.

@nellieellie This piece from the Secular Society is from last year: www.secularism.org.uk/opinion/2016/10/advice-for-parents-wanting-to-give-the-evangelical-operation-christmas-child-shoebox-scheme-a-wide-berth

And if the school says, well, they are atheists, they would say that, then this piece is from earlier this year by a Baptist in the US: baptistnews.com/article/stuffing-shoe-boxes-for-the-worlds-poor-maybe-you-should-reconsider/#.WeWr0ztlmT_

Or perhaps you should just get them to google Franklin Graham and the words "Islam" or "gay" to see why this is not an organisation that British schools should support.

@mountainpika No one is saying that you should stop giving to charity, and of course giving to charity makes you feel good. It is just that packing a shoebox full of Christmas gifts for poor children attracts people because it gives them the kind of warm, fuzzy feeling that filling in a standing order form for Save the Children, for example, does not - but there is no question that the work Save the Children does is a far more effective, worthwhile form of charity than handing out shoeboxes to recruit for 'discipleship classes'.

You need to think about why you are giving, what you want to achieve, and most importantly what the recipients might want/need. If you are a poor villager in Nepal, for example, would you like your children to get a one-off donation of toys and stationery, or perhaps vaccinations, clean water, a village school etc? The problem is that when they give something tangible, it is easier for donors to picture their donation arriving and making someone happy, which makes them feel good, while giving money seems impersonal and does not make them feel the same.

When people defend Operation Christmas Child they often say it is because it is fun for children to do, and makes them think of others at Christmas - but there are many more effective ways of teaching children about charity and altruism while having fun.

In the same way, in the wake of disasters (Grenfell, earthquakes, tsunamis etc) charities are often inundated with donations of clothes, blankets, food and so on, and offers of help from unqualified volunteers, when what they usually really need is cash donations so that they can buy the exact resources they need, and get trained staff to where they are needed, rather than wasting time and money sorting and transporting inappropriate donations, or trying to find jobs for inexperienced volunteers.

And don't get me started on charities which ship teenagers off to developing countries to (attempt to) build schools/orphanages, rather than pay local workers to do a much better job and help the local economy at the same time...

supermum thanks for that - good idea

If you're in the north West Midlands then please think about either doing a shoebox or donating money to fill a shoe box which is then delivered to someone living in an old persons home who receives no visitors and no gifts.
www.justgiving.com/olive-circle

m.facebook.com/olivecircle/?locale2=en_GB

There is a list of what's required on the Facebook page. This is a very small local charity that pays no wages to anyone and helps local people in need.

The Met Police does a Christmas appeal each year where you are given the sex and age of a child to buy a present for. So, it’s more specific, non-religious and helps those local to you. Used to do the shoe boxes but switched to the Met appeal in recent years. Details usually come out in around November.

www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2016/05/14/a-woman-was-fired-by-a-christian-charity-for-supporting-marriage-equality-why-is-she-surprised/

www.patheos.com/blogs/johnshore/2012/07/franklin-graham-of-samaritans-purse-reject-gays-and-eat-at-chick-fil-a/

emilyjoypoetry.com/7-reasons-not-to-participate-in-operation-christmas-child-this-year

www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/05/franklin-graham/527013/

www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/franklin-graham-conversion-therapy_us_59076a24e4b0bb2d08700600

"Graham, for example, voiced support for Vladimir Putin’s crackdown on the rights of LGBT people. There has been increased discrimination and violence against LGBT persons in Russia—including beatings, abductions, and public humiliation. “Putin is right on these issues,” Graham said. “He has taken a stand to protect his nation’s children from the damaging effects of any gay and lesbian agenda.”

Making cash donations to a charity -
how much is actually used as we expect it to be? How much goes on admin? I realise there are costs involved, but are all costs necessary? I wonder about charities that send letters with a pen or something to every household. That must cost a lot.
At least with the school bags I can hand over my cheque, pack the bags and follow where they go.
Yes, there are many other things they need, water being one essential. If I weren't supporting schoolbags, I'd support a water charity. But I can't do everything. So I'll stick to the schoolbags for now.

Making cash donations to a charity - how much is actually used as we expect it to be? How much goes on admin? I realise there are costs involved, but are all costs necessary? I wonder about charities that send letters with a pen or something to every household. That must cost a lot.

You can check that out. All charities in the UK have to be registered with OSCR in Scotland or the Charities Commission. Larger charities of the type to mailshot have to submit detailed accounts and you can see exactly what they're spending money on. In fact it's more complicated than that - I volunteer in a large charity which has shops up and down the country and there are obvious overheads to running shops like manager salary, electricity etc. So a small percentage of what we take through the till goes to overheads. But money given as donation in response to an appeal and not in return for "goods" is treated differently for accounting purposes and a greater percentage goes directly to the cause. It's complex - but the figures are out there if you want to research.

You can look up Samaritan's Purse International on the Charity Commission website and see what their income and expenditure statements are. Their mission statement says: "SAMARITAN'S PURSE IS A NON-PROFIT, CHRISTIAN ORGANISATION PROVIDING CHURCH SUPPORT AND EMERGENCY RELIEF AND DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANCE TO THE VICTIMS OF WAR, FAMINE, NATURAL DISASTER, AND DISEASE, WITH THE AIM OF DEMONSTRATING GOD'S LOVE TO ALL AND SHARING THE GOOD NEWS OF JESUS CHRIST." (not my capital letters)

You can also look at the countries in which they are operating, and see more detailed accounts if you click through the options on the left.

Dig a bit deeper, and their evangelising foremost mission is crystal clear:
" Samaritan's Purse is also focused on providing practical tools such as sending Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes and teams to churches and communities as they seek to reach out to their neighbours, and delivering a child focussed 12 lesson discipleship programme to children overseas through The Greatest Journey. In 2015/2016 902,602 shoeboxes were sent to children around the world and over 30,000 children were discipled through The Greatest Journey"

Thank you for that, Poppy.
Worth checking charities.

I used to sing with a choir and we did performances in various places. We turned up to do one and I wasn't pleased to find out it was to raise money for some religious group to send bibles abroad. I don't like any form of evangelising and that wasn't a charity I would have ever given to. I felt that that choir members should have had a say in the charities we supported and certainly be told in advance which charity it was in aid of.

Mountain

Poppy is totally right that you can actually research this information via the Charities Commission. However, as a funder I tend to view charities as an ecosystem. A lot of the smaller, grassroots charities in India, for example, are basically implementation partners for the larger ones, so naturally, the smaller ones are nearly 100% programme expenditure (they can allocate all staff costs to programme costs). Larger charities tend to have more structured staffing, and also do the research, pilots, policy, and advocacy, evaluation and programme design work, which is actually really important to ensure that what is done on the ground is effective and that programmes achieve impact at scale. That work requires more centralised staffing which goes into overheads.

Another example is disaster relief- a lot of people don't want to give money to the Red Cross because they see they as a big charity with big overheads, but part of the reason for those overheads is that they spend money building the relationships and global logistical framework that mean the aid truck will actually get through or the mobile clinic will be built. The smaller charities might spend every penny you give them on rice or sanitary packs but they then piggy back RC infrastructure for last mile.

Basically, a long way round of saying that I understand why retail donors only want to give to small, grassroots charities, but often the systemic change is driven by activities that result in larger "overheads".

This thread is so damaging to charities that might want to genuinely make children happy without evangelising. It is sad that people stop donating just because of what someone heard in the grapevine.

I understand that Richard Dawkins is tireless in his fundraising efforts for charity so perhaps he could help out? Oh, no, wait.....

Um little more than a grapevine. Nobody has said don't donate just don't fill a shoebox with plastic tat that has limited usefulness in the name of a homophobic evangelical cause and give to a far better charity that will actually be far more productive.

Alternative ideas to Samaritan's putse. Apologies if it's already been posted.

Purse*

This thread is so damaging to charities that might want to genuinely make children happy without evangelising. It is sad that people stop donating just because of what someone heard in the grapevine.

With respect, it is a good thing to encourage people to fully understand ANY organisation they donate to for charitable purposes as a matter of course. Charities hold a certain amount of power purely because of the money or donations they give.

Not doing that is actually an abdication of your responsibility as a donor.

You should hold charities to account, just as we should hold other organisations to account.

The best way to do that, is to make sure that when you give, you are interested in what happens next too, and don't just think blindly that charity = good.

Yes the focus here is on one charity which many think has questionable practices and has been the subject of more scrutiny than most (This is something that goes beyond simply being stuff 'heard on the grapevine'. It has been the subject of investigative journalism with a higher threshold of reporting things simply because they have to report in a way which doesn't get them sued by a charity with litigious tendencies). The point is that charities SHOULD be scrutinised.

It is right and proper to ask questions and to see if others have questions about a charity. It is wrong to discourage this or suggest that raising concerns damages charity.

It doesn't. It means that the better charities get supported and it encourages charities to have better practices to get that support.

If charities can not answer and respond to criticism and use PR/legal threats for different audiences because their ethos does not fit with them all, that is not transparency.

Charities must be transparent or abuses of power can occur.