to not send Ds's to harvest festival this morning??????????

[frangipan]

Its a matter of principal I suppose.
last year and this year each child has to find 1 of each coin of the realm (£1.88) and tape it to a sheet to take into harvest for wateraid in underdeveloped countries.
We always used to send in food for the local community which was great, we all had a choice to send what we could spare, whether that was a tin of beans or a bag full, it was all put together and taken into church.
Now I feel we are being forced to give money to cause I know nothing about...and if I don't send DS's in with it they will be ostricised(sp) from the service and I don't feel happy about that, so I'm keeping them off until 11.30 AIBU...probrably
so what do you think?????

I agree with the poster who said send in the £1.88 plus make up your own hamper to donate to the local OAP home or womens refuge. That way, everyone happy.

Ahhhh thanks for all your input-apparently we weren't the only ones.
It was the chuch and not the schools decision, ds's only missed harvest service in church(if you can call it that)and even secretary and dep head agreed.......

YABU and also am really IRRITATED by this

Every year at church we get cans of SHITE that no one wants and have been at the back of cupboards. The OLD PEOPLE IN THE PARISH then have to take them to the homeless shelter and the refuge, who say "THANKS VERY MUCH" and take the fecking pea soup that no one wants and feck knows where it goes then. People send CANS OF SHITE and very ANCIENT parishioners are left to deal with it.

Fine, if you want to FEEL GOOD ABOUT YOURSELF and nice and warm inside - well go and volunteer at your local CVS then instead of feeling warm inside about your 8p can of SPAM that you think will make a difference to someone's life.

Or give money to wateraid which will save people's lives in countries that know what TRUE poverty is.

So you're keeping your children away because you feel your principles are being compromised by giving less than £2. To an excellent charity that saves the lives of children in countries who would otherwise die from drinking dirty water!

Yes, you are being unreasonable!

Honestly, you KEPT YOUR CHILD OFF SCHOOL because you object to this

You are INSANE

Do you know how many "homeless people" there are in my town? About FOUR. What are they going to do with 3000 cans of shite from local schoolchildren?

Wouldn't like to be the person who had to unstick all the coins! I do think faq has a good point about the practicality of distributing the food. At our school we send in harvest baskets and then at the end of the day they have a sale in the school hall and we are encouraged to go and buy one back and the money goes to some charity or other (global though). So we do end up paying twice! I assume the sale is because the distribution side is not practical.

and mp also.

In my experience giving individual tins / packets to instiutions such as old people's homes is a waste of time and energy. How are you going to distribute it? They cook in bulk. Several different family sized tins of stuff is no use at all. I once worked in an orphanage overseas and we had this problem with donations from the UK- a lot of stuff got wasted (or requisitioned by staff) as the kitchens just didn't have the capacity or time to use the stuff, and you couldn't give different things to different children anyway. If you're going to, please collect money and ask what they would like, or maybe chocolate / sweets that can just be distributed equally without having to be cooked.

V true giddly.

Look, our society doesn't NEED cans of spam. There are poor people in homes which are well catered for, and there are poor people living alone who don't have the self-esteem or awareness to ask for help, and there are poor people who social services visit twice a day and feed and clean.

Please explain how exactly you think your near-date can of butterbeans is going to find the right person in need, be distributed to that person, and be of use to that person? How?

To be completely honest, I think keeping your children away from a service purely to stop some of the poorest people on earth from benefitting from a measly £1.88 that could actually save their lives is not a principle that I really recognise as moral. Ok, you want your children to help contribute to the community, then volunteer to visit the local old people's home, or help to tidy the garden there, as our school does, or suggest this initiative to the school. YOu can be proactive here. I think children very easily get the idea of making a donation to other children who are so poor they don't even have clean water.

Only with quite a lot of effort from a volunteer mp, and that won't happen that often.

I think that is why our school does it the way they do. They really want money for charity as the end result. but to keep everyone sweet and the church looking pretty we send in something and buy something else back. Of course, there are issues because 99% of parents send something in, and not all buy something back (maybe working and so not doing pick up, for instance) so I assume they have excess stuff left at the end.

Sorry - slightly off the point but how do all the coins of the realm add up to £1.88? Isn't there a £2 coin?

We have loads of homeless people here, just down the road from you I think MorningPaper. They come especially for the sunny climate and the small city feel. It's a better place to be homeless.

I don't think they like spam though any more than the homeless in the grim northern cities. I used to work in a soup kitchen place there where we converted endless tins of spam and crap soup into a huge disgusting urn of variegated soup. urgh.

My DS's school collected for the local homeless day centre. They sent a letter out requesting certain items that the day centre had requested and these included toilet rolls etc.It seemed a sensible thing to do, the day centre got things they wanted (which also included tins of tomatoes) and I felt I was doing something positive to help. BTW I sent DS in with a hugh box of Weetabix (with a long sell by date).

Keeping the children apart who don't donate is the worst kind of wrong. and for that reason i would take them out too, it's blackmail.

The charity may be the best in the world but forcing people to donate is wrong.

Last year the local school next door to my MIL gave them a hamper - which she took - but she didn't need it for god's sake.
Our school liase with a charity that helps care leavers and young offenders that are setting up a new home...canned food is the order of the day.
It has been a great success and we have done it for several years now. It's not a 'popular' charity iykwim and unfortunately has a nver ending stram of new clients so our stuff is very helpful.

I suppose that would be fay too much to ask for Hassled - £3.88 from each child!

or even "far" too much

How exactly would they have ostracised your children from the service, frangipan? Would they not be allowed to attend? I would personally much prefer a school give a considered donation to a worthwhile charity than random tins of food, but do agree they should not stipulate ammount or make any child not contributing feel excluded.

I think that the children all take their money up to the front as a 'harvest offering' and therefore those children whose parents are conscientious objetors would have to stay in their pews and are thus being OSTRACISED.

I hope you used your two hours wisely and taught your children some important lessons about the nature of charity and helping our fellow humans.

And perhaps you can spare a thought for all the frustrated 90 year-old women who are running this country's parish churches, who have to go in to church this week and are faced with a pew-ful of useless tinned goods that no one will accept, but at least the donors will feel like they doing something.

Message withdrawn

YABU- If it had been £2.00 for a non-uniform day to raise money for water aid would you have kept your children off school?
My secondary did harvest hampers and there were a few people who sent in good stueff but as a volounteer most of the job was binning the out of date food and making sure the value crap was distributed evenly.
If you had sent your children with 50p I'm sure they could have gone up to donate it.