a few years ago, my mom & I stopped at LONG JOHN SILVERS for lunch. There was a woman begging-"starving to death" MOM offered to go back in & buy her a whole meal. She refused, BUT asked what it would cost. We could JUST GIVE HER THE $$$$.I think not!Several weeks later same woman, same story, same general location. I told her how, IF you was hungry, she would've taken the food. That it was apparent what she really wanted was $$$$ for booze or alchol. Not giving up my $$$ for someone else's bad habit. When you give a quilt or a bag of food, at least you know where your $$$ went.Many fund raisers, only a portion actually goes where you thought! The local FOP, calls & raises$$$- didn't know until my husband was laidoff, that the calls were made by a HIRED bank of telephone solicitors& they hired ANYONE to be runners to go p/u the donations(husband got hired as a runner) Thought we were dealing w/cops--but -no - just anyone off the street, no background check. Its things like these make people leary of just handing out money!--There are ALOT OF LIGIT CHARTIES out there, that most of the $$$ does go where you intended!