to not contribute to this appeal and potentially embarrass my children?

[SnappedCrackledAndPopped]

School is holding a cake sale and non uniform day for a 'charity appeal' for a terminally ill little girl. The appeal has been featured in local newspaper and radio and they want to raise half a million pounds to go towards seeking alternative therapies abroad and also a memory making Disney family holiday. I'm rather embarrassed to say that I have a few issues with this, due to the following:

The child is terminally ill. There is nothing, absolutely nothing that can be done to save their life or halt progression of this cruel and tragic disease. At best, these quack unproven treatments could only extend their life by a couple of months, at worse it would mean dragging a very sick child half way around the world on several exhausting journeys, which I'm not too sure would be in their best interests.

It is not correct to say this is a charity appeal. It is a crowd funder.

The kids think I'm being unreasonable. I'm ok with donating to one of the charities and foundations that fund research into this disease and I will happily do so. It's just that the crowd funder doesn't sit comfortably with me.

On the other hand I can wholly sympathise with her desperate family and have no idea whether or not I'd do the same in this situation.

Should I just keep my thoughts to myself and ride the wave of love shown to them by our local community, or go with my gut instinct that all this is probably not a very good idea?

Prepared to be told I'm a heartless evil witch.

No offence OP, but this is going to be pretty identifiable. How do you think the parents would feel if they heard about this thread?

Let your kids dress and in their own clothes and just give the bloody pound and then say a quiet prayer that you aren't in the same situation.

I'm properly speechless at this thread tbh. Unless you've been in that situation you can't assume you wouldn't do the same. And unless you're a doctor you can't say these treatments will have no benefits for the child (or medical research for that matter).

And did you really have to mention a Disneyland holiday? Let the kid have a little bit of joy. You sound jealous.

If you don't want to donate, then don't. That's your choice. But making a thread about it, wanting people to back you up? Discuss a child's prognosis when it's NONE of anyone's business? Unbelievable.

Why don't you get over yourself and be fucking thankful you're not in their shoes. This is not you're situation, stop making a drama for yourself on the back of a parent's desperation for their child.

It is not about you. Take part, smile and count your blessings.

Your

Dinosaurkisses OP's being asked for a couple of pounds it's not like she's being asked to remortgage her house!!! Would you really take the moral high ground over £2 when someone had a terminally ill child???

People astound me sometimes.

remembering Asha King and his poor parents' efforts to get proton beam radiation for him

@MrsMaisel, are you also remembering how Ashya King's tumour was removed in a NHS hospital by NHS doctors and that is what actually saved him, not the completely useless at that point proton beam therapy?

I don't think anyone can be as naive to start a thread like this and not know it's going to get people's backs up. Oh to be the lucky ones not effected by cancer!

@TattyFrench - another poster upthread mentioned the Burzinski Clinic. Please read about that before stomping your feet and shouting about a moral high ground.

Making a donation doesn’t stop with you getting your purse out and dropping a few coins into a bucket and getting a warm fuzzy feeling afterwards. It can potentially go to line the pockets of a “clinic” or medic who has made a fortune by praying on desperate parents and denying seriously unwell children a dignified passing.

OP has said she doesn’t have any issue with the holiday aspect of the fund raising.

Oh man, not read all the replies, but seriously? You obviously have school age kids.Put yourself in the shoes of the fundraisers.God forbid anything happened to your kids, you'd want the same right? You'd want potential extra time, even if "only a few months" with them.Maybe a few days out for making memories with them and making their last days more enjoyable.
All for the sake of cake or two and a cup of tea or whatever.
YABVVVVVVVVVVVVVU.

Actually I dont think this thread is that identifiable. In my area alone there have been 2 appeals like this in the last 6 months for terminally ill children, who both died pretty soon after the appeals began. I agree with you OP - these are blatant emotional appeals using social media to amplify the appeal. I just hope that the families dont regret being involved afterwards.

I think all you can do is to continue to support the charities that you currently do (or not if you dont support charities). I think it is really poor to put pressure on outsiders to be financially involved.

I'd be having a sharp word with the school and the governors, I think.
It's extremely inappropriate - the kid doesn't go to your DCs' school, therefore they don't know him/her and it's frankly not impossible that it is a total scam. (It's not like there have never ever been any cases of people whining for money for a 'dying' child who didn't exist in the first place.)
As PP said, there's also something a bit iffy about donating towards quack therapies and 'clinics' which prey on desperate families.
The emotional blackmail element is very distasteful, particularly if it's a school in a poor area. To a family on benefits, £15 on 'charity' might well mean a couple of missed meals at home.

This is a parenting website, and the odds are good that most people posting here are parents. So the “be grateful it’s not you” posts are pretty low.

I would give a lot more than a few quid to a family struggling to scrape together enough money to go on a holiday/do something else to make the most of the time they have left with their child.

I would also contribute to medical bills, or even experimental treatments that the family are able to indicate (not prove scientifically - they have better things to do with their time) might lengthen their remaining time with their child. I’d leave it to the parents’ judgement whether the treatment would affect their child’s quality of life, or what the chances of success are (each day would count, I’m sure of it).

I would not contribute a penny into a nebulous, £500,000 slush fund. To me, this is “this is awful, we don’t know what to do, maybe money will get us out of this hellhole, please can you help us raise some” instead of “we are living a nightmare and would appreciate donations towards a holiday to Disneyworld (£25,000 for 8 family members), xyz treatment (approximate cost being estimated at £150,000, plus living costs of another £35,000) etc etc”.

I’m afraid there have been too many people behave unaccountably with crowdfunded cash (most recently the young couple who came to New York on a 5 day holiday and had a baby here without health insurance).

Ok dinosaurkisses so you'd rather, in the OP's position, say to the family of the child "so sorry, I've done my research and I don't think that person can help your child" then go and buy a latte at Costa for £3.

The Burzinski Clinic is a red herring, the family are desperate and clinging to strands of hope. But I wouldn't stand on my moral high ground for £2 when another parent's child was dying.

The drama people create over other people's grief is shocking. Pay the £2 or don't. Stop making it about you. Go and hang the washing out or something.

And I have talked to DS before about wanky/scammy 'charity' appeals of various kinds and why we are not going to support them. Generally it's only been a percentage of kids in the class whose parents have donated time or money, because we live in a fairly poor area and most people either haven't got the cash/time to spare, or resent the pressure to give money they can't afford.

Just remember, any old random scammer can set up a crowdfunder and have it away with the money. And there are plenty of people very keen to exploit dying kids, as well.

I couldn't get worked up over buying a slice of cake or not, seriously.

TattyFrench

How is it remotely your place to decide how the OP spends her own money?

Is this how "charitable" campaigns work now...pay up or shut up?

There is justifiable concern that maybe by contributing to a fund like this some measurable harm could happen to the child. That's the OP's dilemma and one that she's perfectly justified in wanting views on.

Unfortunately, the internet is stuffed with people like you more interested in demonstrating your "superior" moral character than actually addressing the issue at hand.

The only red herring is shite like this....But I wouldn't stand on my moral highground for £2 when another parent's child was dying What a load of manipulative bullshit.

Just adding to my earlier post: it’s a tragic fact of life that some parents lose children before it’s time. I think it’s important for everyone - the parents, parents who will be in this position down the line, parents who will never know the grief, family members, the medical profession, juries on related criminal trials (I live in the US), all of us really - that there be standards or an acceptable ‘code’ of conduct around what happens in these situations. I don’t think anyone benefits from a race to the bottom. I think everyone benefits from maintaining a degree of probity, upholding standards of moral behaviour. Repeating ad nauseam that “it’s a goddam dying child ffs, just give them a couple of quid and be grateful it’s not you” doesn’t get anyone anywhere. Firstly, we all know this and to suggest otherwise is inhuman and belittling. Secondly, this line suggests that your £2 donation makes you somehow more empathetic, absolves you of your share of responsibility for the awfulness that some people deal with, gives you moral superiority. It’s easy to hand over £2 or spare an afternoon baking cakes, easier still to tap out scathing remarks in a website. But there’s more to it than that.

These are very difficult situations for us all, every random member of the public included. There’s no glib answer, and £2 is the very least of it.

My reservations are entirely to do with subjecting a child to futile and dubious treatments

My limited experience is that the child won't get the treatment. Child will get the happy holiday which will help the family feel like they did all they could do to make child have a good life (what remains of it). Child will be assessed by the dubious clinic, a few small things will be tried, child will be too ill to be treated even by the quack clinic standards (eg., clinic will realise prognosis looks so bad they can't even use this child in their advertising), child will return to home country or undergo whatever fate they were going to have.

Residual money donated could be hugely helpful for subsidising good palliative care or put to another good cause.

I am with you op. I think targeting schools for crowd finding is pretty low. In effect it's using our children to bully us parents to give money. Soo wrong!
And while it is very noble of all you NM saying it's only a few quid, be glad it's not you, ... I think it's time to kook at the wider implications.
First, it's for a family, no regulation, what exactly are they going to do with the money? What if they don't get enough of the child dies before, is to ill to travel?
Secondly, the impact it has on all the other children at school. Dealing with such big issues especially at primary age must be scary for them. As my daughter (8 at the time) once said to me in a similar situation: "Mum, if we don't but this wristband (£2), this child will die." How do you explain, to a sensitive child, that the money will make no difference? That there are very sadly illnesses that will take a child's life? That no, it is not going to be you next... ?

TildaMa I assure you it was the proton beam which saved him. The only completely useless thing here are your opinions. My son was sent to the US before the Ashya King case, by the NHS for treatment for a brain tumour. They paid for our journey, the treatment - everything... more than 100K. It saved him. So know it's not hokum, I have the MRIs and a child who is alive to prove it. Thank you and good bye.

My friend did exactly the same thing. She raised £250k and managed to access drugs not available on the nhs, because they were experimental. Yes she still died but she lived long enough to ensure she had time to say good bye to friends, family, her daughter and her husband. She had a wonderful goodbye ball as a celebration of friendship and she died knowing she'd done everything she could.

There are lots of treatments out there that are not on offer from the nhs, which are NOT fucking 'quack treatments'. Just because the nhs doesn't offer them, doesn't make them 'snake oil'. There are many many reasons why certain therapies are not available here. Doesn't mean they are invalid.

If they provide a bit of hope and comfort and d tend that child's life or provide a chance for a bit of relief and joy in an otherwise bleak existence who are you to judge for the sake of a few quid?

@MrsMaisel no it wasn't. It may have worked for your son, but your sun is not Ashya King, not the same case, not the same treatment, your anecdata is completely useless because it's not even relevant. There's more than one kind of brain tumours and something that works for one will not necessarily do anything for a different one.

Just think for a moment. NHS sent your son to the US, all expenses paid. Why wouldn't they do it for AK? Well, because his case was different, he received treatment here and sending him somewhere else wasn't going to do anything more than what he got here.

How cute (condescending), you think I haven't thought about this! I assure you I have a wealth of unwanted experience here - which I wouldn't even wish on the likes of you. The NHS only funds certain cases where there is a certain degree of assured success with the treatment being curative. Because budgets are tight. That doesn't mean other cases wouldn't benefit. Regular photon radiation is effective too, but the side effects will be mammoth.

Adorable how you think you know anything about the likes of me.