Anyone been part of the shoebox appeal team?

[Disabrie22]

I’ve just made the usual charity shoe box appeal boxes with the children and I’m curious about who gets them and how the process of giving them out works? I know there’s various critiques but I remember someone coming on here who worked for them - but I can’t remember what they said. Anyone part of the process?

I’m an expat in Azerbaijan and I took part in a reverse advent calendar for poor families. It was done on a really small scale and we were given the names and ages of the children in the selected families. My family last year was a single mother of a 9 year old girl who live in the countryside. I was able to put together a whole load of food as well as some presents for both of them, it felt really personal. When they were handed out by the local nuns in the convent we saw photos of them receiving it. Taking part in a really small scale, local charity felt much better than sending a shoebox to an anonymous recipient far away like I did a few years ago.

I stopped my son’s school doing OCC when he was in Reception. The Head had no idea, was horrified and now they do local food bank stuff.

At work we support a local one for children who otherwise would not get anything - as it is run through a local community group we have had feedback and one year a lovely picture made by the kids as a thank you

As a school we have stopped doing this and are donating locally to a food bank instead.
Personally I am donating to the local food bank to me. There are families in my school with nothing and in my local area so I have chosen to help them to have nice food for Christmas even if they don't have much else.

I have now stopped two schools doing this by writing to the HTs with links about Samaritans Purse and their evangelical practices and homophobic/islamophobic views.

#proud

May I suggest with universal credit in full swing in some places people consider donating to food banks.

Without wanting to sound negative please check with your local Food Bank to find out what they actually need at this time of year, the one I help at gets totally overwhelmed with donations around Christmas, we run out of storage space and there are only so many Christmas puddings you can give out. Cash is always useful or wait until end of February when stocks run low.

We do something similar but small scale. We collect food and presents for some of our less fortunate service users that we help daily throughout the year, we personally hand them out ourselves. Can you find something local? Our local church does similar too

Why would anyone refuse to do it, so Scroogely

Cos we arent racist bigoted homophobes?

Read up on the 'good' Mr Grahams rants on the above topics then say its a good idea to promote their cause.

"Why would anyone refuse to do it, so Scroogely"

Because we can read and think?

"Why would anyone refuse to do it, so Scroogely"

RTFT. No one is not doing it because they are mean and don't believe in giving to charity.

Depends which one - my work does one for the nearby homeless shelter - socks, gloves, hat, wipes, shower gel, chocolate
Son’s school does one for local food bank (food items from list)