Re: OT a note on charity was Re: KATRINA QUILTS

I had one of those supervisors that we all called "Ms. Clueless'. We were
brainstorming in a staff meeting about what to include in case plans in
order to reunite neglected (that usually means filth and crud for the
uninformed) kids with their families that could help them remain in the
home. Social Workers use the term "Successful Reunification". This
particular supervisor rarely ever made home visits and had been "appointed"
to her position by the governor (of Missouri, Leslie). She had made her
first home visit all by herself the day before and was still in shock from
the experience. She had drove her very luxerious BMW and had walked into
this cockroach ridden home with filth and crud everywhere on her 3 inch
pointy toed designer heels. She was appalled at the fact the mother was
"depressed" and reported to the staff how she berated the lady about getting
off the couch and getting a job to make money. Then she drummed her
perfectly manicured nails on the table and said: " I mean ... really ... why
wouldn't she want to buy some new furniture or something!" We all put our
face in our coffee at the same instant and chocked - out loud - all at the
same time. I couldn't breathe for fear I would laugh. Sorry you had the
bad experience of having a similarly clueless social worker.

I too came from a family of poverty but we were blessed with parents who
taught a strong work ethic, pride and a belief that education was the way
out. My Daddy earned $100 month as a school bus driver. He parked the bus
at our house at the end of the day because we had no car so he couldn't
drive to work. The whole family worked for others in their farms to earn a
little cash and we took care of our own little farm to raise some of our
food needs. We relied on others to drive us to town or to the doctor. We
had no electricity and our water came from a spring down the road. My
mother made her own soap from lard and lye and I learned to iron with heavy
irons heated on our wood cookstove. Laundry was boiled in a large cast iron
pot and rubbed on a wash board (that I still have). We hung the clothes on
the line and the sun dried them. The same tub that we rinsed the clean
laundry in was used on Saturday night for a bathtub. My mother sewed our
clothing from feedsacks and we got one pair of shoes a year from the Sears &
Roebuck catalog just before school started. When the soles got holes in
them they were lined with cardboard and if you out grew them Daddy cut a
hole in the ends. We used an outhouse for a bathroom and the last years
edition of the Sears & Roebuck Catalog was our toilet paper. So I know
poverty first hand and I think it made me a better Social Worker. I knew
the difference between Poverty and Neglect. Poor Ms. Clueless is married to
the Chief of Police with her one son and still hasn't a clue about how the
poorest in our community live and survive.

--
http://community.webshots.com/user/snigdibbly
SNIGDIBBLY
~e~
<">
/ \
http://members.ebay.com/aboutme/snigdibbly.
http://www.ebaystores.com/snigdibblysscrapbox&refid=store
"NightMist" <nightmiste@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:431deb3a.103422@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> On Tue, 6 Sep 2005 08:47:30 -0500, "SNIGDIBBLY" <snigdibbly@xxxxxxx>
> wrote:
>
>> For years I was one of
>>the coordinators for the County Community Share Xmas program where we
>>accepted donated Xmas gifts and clothing for Foster Kids and poor kids
>>across the county. I have seen so much waste and abuse. Parents sold the
>>stuff for drugs and alcohol or just threw it out. I found brand new -
>>unwrapped toys - in the garbage during home visits. Many parents signed
>>up
>>for like programs from every agency in the area and got duplicate food
>>baskets and toys and sold them or just threw them out. I will never give
>>a
>>whole turkey dinner again unless I give a cooked turkey because they would
>>let it spoil before they would cook it. There just doesn't seem to be any
>>appreciation for the effort. Most wouldn't even come pick them up and our
>>social workers would have to deliver them or they wouldn't get to the
>>children at all. I have become too cynical. But I enjoy the giving so I
>>do
>>it with the knowledge that it probably won't be used as I wished it to be.
>>I just have to let it go and enjoy the giving. Sure makes me made when
>>people use other people and then abuse their charitible hearts.
>>
> Snigs, I am not going to even try to excuse the a***oles of the world,
> because there is no excuse for them. There are indeed plenty of them,
> on both sides of the giving equation.
>
> It is high time some common sense was thrown into the world of
> charitable giving.
>
> Now, so you all know, I give when and what I can when causes come to
> my attention. More often though, my family and I are on the other
> side. Yes, we are poor. In fact, one of the jokes is we are "p",
> 'cause we can't afford the rest of the letters. I know that there are
> others out there that are much worse off than we are. In fact
> sometimes I get pissed off because I know that there are needier
> people living close by and some charity comes knocking at my door
> (figuratively and sometimes literally) instead. I usually try to send
> them in the right direction, but often they are set on who they are
> going to give to.
>
> In my time, we have been gifted with food, clothes, and whatnot, and
> most of it was about as useful as tits on a boar hog.
>
> I have never thrown perfectly good things away, I have always tried to
> find someone else who needs them, or recycled them into a charitable
> organization.
>
> For example, one of the local churches (unasked) once brought us a
> turkey dinner for Thanksgiving. Delivered complete with conversion
> pitch and admonitions about how we were going to go straight to hell
> if we didn't give up sex, drugs, rock and roll, and our obviously
> satanic lifestyle. I guess that since we don't have a lot of money
> that means we are obviously maniacal drug useing minions of satan.
> Well even if we weren't vegetarians I didn't have the equipment to
> cook a damn turkey. What the heck was I supposed to do with the thing
> even if I planned on eating it? Stick it on a fork and toast it over
> a burner? Put it in the oven in a plastic grocery sack? I'm not even
> sure it would have fit in my oven. So I gave most of the lot to lady
> down the road. Even there I had to call the Salvation Army and beg a
> tinfoil roasting pan for her (she didn't have a phone, and was about
> as inclined to put her hand out as cut it off). Fortunately they not
> only gave her the pan but included a whole roll of tinfoil and
> instructions on how to cook the thing, otherwise she had no better
> idea of what to do with it than I did.
> Yeah, "Aunt Sal-ly" rocks!
>
> Another time a social worker gave me a bag of 8 or 9 brand new dresses
> for my then second grader. She thought they would be so cute with
> tights and rumba pants. Yeah, right. I have never, nor will I ever
> send a 7 year old child out into January in what amounts to a frilly
> shirt and stockings. Nor am I inclined to send a 7 year old girl out
> in a dress that flashes her bottom regardless, even if I could have
> forced her out the door dressed like that. To say nothing of the fact
> that I would have had to buy the rumba pants and then a never ending
> series of tights. (1)
> The dresses when to Aunt Sal-ly.
>
> The number of people who have thought that we would be so grateful to
> get their trash that we would come and fetch it is astounding.
> Anytime someone says, 'our widget is broken so we got a new one, but
> your husband is clever and I am sure he could fix the broken one.
> Just come and pick it up anytime between noon and 12:01.' I just
> smile, nod, and walk away. I don't have a car and I am not inclined
> to walk over to fetch a widget that I have been doing quite well
> without, and that probably will never work again anyway.
>
> There have been times that people have offered me large items that we
> really did truly need. But we haven't had the means to go fetch them.
> That has not been good. Especially when they get all angry because
> they know we need the thing. What the heck am I supposed to do? Pull
> a carjacking on a moving van?
> Remember the thread we had on kitchen stoves not long ago? Just last
> month I was darn near to weeping with frustration because my
> daughter's landlord offered us an old Chambers gas range in beautiful
> condition. He had taken on a partner who owned a second hand
> appliance store and was replaceing all the very old appliances in his
> apartments with more modern ones. I met this stove, it was beautiful.
> One of the ones the gas company gave out decades ago to get people to
> switch from wood or coal to gas. But I didn't have the fifty dollars
> the partner wanted to shift it, nor could I find anybody to move it
> for less. My stove is an apartment sized thing with one working
> burner, one sometimes working burner, and no functional pilots so I
> have to light the oven from the broiler. I sooo wanted that stove!
>
> I s'pose all I am saying is please please think before you give, and
> think before you condem. That social worker with the dresses gave us
> no end of grief about DD not wearing them, and other people have gone
> all superior, taking a "see what happens when you try to do good"
> attitude when we have not been all happy to recieve useless stuff or
> able to fetch things we actually needed.
>
> If you give a box of tuna helper to the food pantry, please give a
> couple of cans of tuna with it.
> Don't assume people will be happy to haul your junk for free just
> because they are poor.
> Please don't offer people things without a thought for how they will
> get them home. That is just cruel, especially if it is something they
> need.
> Don't assume that just because they are poor children will be happy
> with any old thing you want to give them. No ten year old will be
> happy with a toy meant for a toddler, regardless.
> Don't assume that everyone knows how to alter clothes that don't fit.
> Don't get all offended if they do alter clothes that don't fit.
> Most poor people do not need cable converters, entertainment centers,
> knick knacks, table linens, or cordless phones. I have been offered
> all of the above and turned down all but the linens, they were real
> linen and made some mighty fine shirts, but most people wouldn't know
> to do that with them. The lady with the cable converter was astounded
> that I didn't accept it and run right out to get cable.
> Please! Please! Please! Do not patronize or proselytize. Poor
> people have as much pride as anyone else. Being given a sermon along
> with food is something that you can expect at a mission, but not in
> your own home or at a secular help agency.
>
> It is wonderful to try and help the less fortunate.
> It is not wonderful to expect them to fall down and praise you for it.
> It is not wonderful to get all huffy when things you give do not get
> used as you anticipated.
>
> NightMist
> We are doing a whole lot better than we used to.
>
> (1) This was a worker who was offended for my child because this
> child was going to school in hand sewn and made over clothes, of which
> DD had plenty.
>
> --
> "To repeat what others have said, requires education; to challenge
> it, requires brains." -Mary Pettibone Poole


.