WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll ·
04/10/2019 20:01
We have a charity in our town, which does a lot of very good work. It's a food bank and also helps vulnerable people in great need of housing assistance - long-term unemployed, those caught in a cycle of deprivation or addiction and others who find themselves in awfully desperate circumstances. They also run courses helping those who struggle with budgeting or lack IT skills which hold them back from being able to advance their own prospects. I think their aims are wonderful and am very glad to have them there doing what they do.
They recently sent out a mailshot to all of the local churches urgently asking people to please consider helping them if at all possible with donations as their stocks and supplies are running particularly low.
However, my AIBU is this. They have developed a reputation for being extremely picky when offered donations. I've certainly experienced this firsthand
Not so much with food, although of course I wouldn't dream of offering out-of-date food (we'd use it ourselves if it was OOD but still fine!) and I realise that bags of pasta and rice, tins of beans and tomatoes and basic toiletries are much more practical than tins of caviar or fresh lobster.
But they expect donations of furniture to be in almost new condition and free of cosmetic blemishes. I know the law regarding fire labels - that's a given - and it wouldn't occur to me to offer dirty or broken stuff that really is only fit for the tip. I understand that some people would, so I have no objection to their politely but firmly declining what really is no good, as it isn't in any way fair for people to use them as a proxy tip.
I'm genuinely not saying 'beggars can't be choosers' and suggesting that people in great need should put up with any old crap and shut up. I just can't believe that the folk who approach them for their help, if approached directly, would think of turning down a comfy sofa in very good condition (with fire reg label) because it has some discolouration to patches of the fabric or not accept a table because wafer-thin veneer has come away at the edge and the chip-board underneath is exposed.
We recently had cause to get rid of several decent quality, perfectly functional items which were now surplus to requirements and this place was my first thought. But knowing how snooty they usually are (and they don't even politely decline things - sometimes just cast a brief eye over it and say "No!"), I just didn't bother and put things on Freecycle instead. Ironically, some of the items were requested and taken by a lovely man from a neighbouring town who works with a similar charity there. I pointed out the imperfections and he smiled and said that the people they're able to help wouldn't even notice, much less care - they'd just be very grateful for something far better than they already had in their present circumstances.
Freecycle is also a great scheme, but not without its chancers and CFs and, whilst anything is better than sending good stuff to landfill, you don't have any effective way of distinguishing between those in need; those who like to help the environment and get a free item, give a free item; and the cynical chancers who almost make a business out of hunting down free merchandise on FC, usually telling lies or sob stories to the giver, and then selling it straight on for a decent profit.
So AIBU? Would people in need really rather sit on the floor than on a comfy sofa with a patch or two of dicolouration? Use an upturned box instead of a solid wooden table with some veneer missing? Is the charity actually helping their own cause by turning away decent items, with plenty of useful life left in them, on behalf of their clients, which would-be donors may otherwise just end up taking to the tip because they have no further use for the items themselves and they need the space?
Are there lots of people out there in possession of valuable new or as-new furniture and other items who inexplicably neither want the items nor want/need to sell them themselves for the money? 