To want more than 24 hrs notice of school Harvest Festival

[clumsymum]

DS gave me a letter last night, dated 20th Oct (so it hasn't been sitting in his bag/tray for days), telling me that I would be welcomed to attend the Harvest festival at the local church at 2:00p.m. today.

Now I'm self employed. It will really foul up my week's work-plan to lose this afternoon (esp. as Friday is an Inset day). I know that lots of mums/dads can't just disappear from work. The kids of course will be disappointed if their parent isn't there. Why on earth did school do this ridiculous thing? I will be mentioning it to the head later.

Also, they would welcome contributions from the children to pass on to a charity for homeless/vulnerable people.
They would like tins/packets, toiletries, or household items such as cloths or toilet rolls. No fresh fruit or veg please.

Now whilst I understand it is important to teach the children about giving to those who are less fortunate, what has this got to do with the HARVEST. Many children are now so seperated from the idea of food being grown .....

I'm really quite cross about both aspects.

well it should have been advertised sooner - are you sure it was not on a dates list at the beginning of term?

at our school they want the items in 2 days in advance to make the display up, so that does seem very odd

i can see what you mean but often charities/hostels etc do not want fresh veg etc, and ANYTHING you give,edible or not, given in thankfulness for your own good fortune, is a worthwhile thing for kids to learn.

our harvest at school this year was all about renewable energy sources and caring for the world of tomorrow!

YANBU if only 1 day's notice. Our school used to be terrible for this kind of thing all the time - but we now have a parents' council that meets every half term and so many people complained about the lack of notice they have sorted it out almost overnight. Now we have diary handed out at start of year, the newsletter lists forthcoming events every week - really makes a difference to any of us that work and well worth following up with the head.

have you checked previous letters to make sure it's not been mentioned already on one of them (at leat the date if not the time).

On the fresh goods thing - it makes sense to have tins and packets and fresh often used to go to waste.

Imagine 1 homeless shelter in your small town, 20 schools - all donating fresh goods, 15 churches all doing the same........

it's just a waste of food, much better to have tins and packets as they don't go off.

The school is unreasonable not to give a weeks notice of something like this, to give parents a chance to make themselves available.

I find it sad that harvest festivals are so far removed from what they once were, and while I can understand tins/packets of food the household items seem a bit strange. I guess this is the way things will be from now on. It does make it very anonymous though, the children may not fully understand where their donations are going, or how they are helping people. When I was young, all the fruit/veg/cakes/bread etc were part of a bring and buy sale, bought by the parents/relatives attending after the service, and the money raised was given to charity. But even here, some fruit/veg came from the market! Anything left over was distributed to pensioners who were church members.

It's too late this year, but what would you like to see happen next year? This would be a good subject for discussion with the Parents Association at the school.

household items not strange - it's what's our local homeless shelter asked for as donations as they're often more desperate for those than the food (as lots of people pass on food on a regular basis but don't think to pass on household goods)

same goes for the Women's Refuge that DS2's school donated to this year - women arrive their with nothing - there was even a bit on one of the lists asking for any used (but clean and is ok condition) underwear.
Makes sense to me - harvest is about sharing what we've got with others that don't have.