charityy
 

What does "charity" mean to you?

As a giver?

As a receiver?

The reason for the question:

There was an article in the Reader's Digest magazine a few months ago about what food items are more sppreciated than others. The gist of it was that some things were more usable than others.

for charity, I make quilts. something they cannot afford to get themselves to do a good deed toward someone else.
does that make sense?

As a "giver" I try to pick organizations, causes, or people that have special meaning to me. For example... My DGS has epilepsy, so we support their yearly walk. Our retiree group raises funds for about 300 Christmas dinners. The joy is in giving to try to help others. We have been very fortunate to be able to do this.

We donate to the local family homeless shelter. About every 3 months we bring in all our aluminum cans to them, I go through our closets several times a year and donate clothes. They need decent looking clothes so they can look and fell good going to or looking for work. We also give them gift cards from Wal Mart, so they can buy paper goods, trash bags etc. It's not much in the grand scheme of things but every bit helps.

We get a tax deduction and a good feeling we help several folks who are on hard times.

The shelter turns in all the cans it gets and uses the money to pay the utility bills.

I lost friends who served in Viet Nam so donate a lot to the Viet Nam Vet groups. They take clothing, household items, etc, and sell them in a resale shop. Also donate quilts to the local Nam vets for auctions. I'd never donate anything that I wouldn't use--so many people send broken, smelly, stained items that have no value to the organization.

I donate to several groups, including homeless shelter, women's shelter and in the past Quilts for Kids. I dislike the word charity. I perfer donation.

I just bought 4 bags of groceries for the local food shelf on my last shopping trip - I tried to pick out nutritious foods, mac& cheese, tuna, canned chicken, but at the last store was a box of Twinkie-things marked down to $1.00 for 12, so I added that. I know they will break up the box and give a few each to families with kids. Sometimes a treat is nice.

As far as clothes, I tend to wear out my clothes so they are no longer donatable when I am through. I am amazed at how people donate clothes with holes, stains etc.

People who give their "trash" have forgotten that those in need were not necessarily always in need. Donating trash shows little or no respect for "our neighbours". New isn't always necessary but Clean and in good repair is.

I do give to our local food pantry drives.....checks periodically to st Jude's children's hospital, local fire dept yearly needy drive, Salvation Army Christmas kettle, but I will not give money to someone standing in front of Walmart, or chain food store or middle of street with large jar with copier paper whatever taped to it......I fear some may be bogus......just watched latest Blue Bloods episode and reinforced my suspicion......
Was donating to local goodwill, but now will switch to a church sponsored resale shop......I feel cause there is more worthy. Jmho