s/o of Charity Giving Tree: Bad gifts given in "charity"

[windpowered]

When I was in high school we would have an annual food drive for the local pantry. I was one of the students who would sort the donations, and rat out anything not accepted. One year there was a big bag of expired cans with rust on them. YUCK!

[IndianInlaw]

Goodwill bales unusable clothing and ships it off to foreign countries.


I remember reading a book by a minister's daughter.  In those days, congregations would fill up "mission barrels" to be sent to ministers and their families, who lived on a pittance.

She complained that they would receive barrels full of women's used hats.  They figured women justified the expense of buying a new hat by donating the old ones.

[TychaBrahe]

My mom has been known to donate half used bottles of perfume and lotion to the Salvation Army among other things.   

I have to admit that this is one of my own personal failings.  As in, it's good stuff.  It just makes my hair go all frizzy.  But someone else can surely use it.  It takes an act of will for me to throw this stuff away.  I usually actually have several old bottles as "emergency" supplies in case I run out of my preferred brand.

[Tabris]

He also told me that the donated clothes bin in his old suburb was closed because people threw their garbage in there, and the last straw was when someone put a roadkill in it. What's wrong with people?

Anyone know where I can go to resign from the human race? 

[Morty'sCleaningLady]

Sadly, famous people have been caught doing some of the bad donations.  It came out while the Clintons were in office that they used to donate their used underwear to charity and write it off as $4 a pair in their tax returns!  I was totally grossed out by that - it costs less than $4 to purchase a new package of three pair at Wal-Mart!

[Nightboomfer]

Once, I went with my church group to volunteer at a food bank/thrift store type place. We were sorting out the clothing and found some stained and ragged underwear... yuck. Who thought those would be a good idea? We also found a box of childrens' toys someone had "donated." I'm sure a lot of kids would love incomplete toys with chunks of baby throw-up and the faint scent of cat urine on them 

[veraobsession]

I think that is the reason "Toys for Tots" and most other toy drives now request that you drop off a NEW, UNWRAPPED toy. They need to be sure that it is ok and acceptable for a child to play with...not some nasty thing that you wouldnt give your dog to play with. Can you imagine someone dropping off something wrapped up really pretty and the workers delivering it to a or girl and then she gets to open up a Barbie with the hands and feet chewed off and the hair cut off? That actually happened at my church several years ago and that is why everything has to be....NEW AND UNWRAPPED!

[Coruscation]

The only thing I would disagree with on this thread is the board game parts. Am I the only one who has bought a used board game expecting some missing parts, tossed the board and combined all the little pieces from two games? Nothing weird, but common games like monopoly etc. I have seen plastic bags worth of these for sale. You can remove the hotel limits and make mega cities on Park Lane.

[Suze]

Yeah, I have done that myself - for myself - not to give away for a charity drive

I have a pile of games around here that I have bought new and either opened them and read the rules or played once

but the TFT won't take them cause they are not "unopened"  Of course, in all fairness most of them are not "Kid's games"

[Harriet Jones]

I still see used toys in the TFT boxes, they're just not wrapped ... there was an extremely filthy play tent in one of the collection boxes this year.

[IndianInlaw]

My friend Warren was the activities director at a residential psychiatric facility for teens and children.  He would solicit donations of items from local businesses.  He received wonderful donations from many businesses, but some were not so good.


They gave wrecked packages of party goods, etc.

He told me he accepted them only because there were some good items in the lot.

The worst thing was that the activities room was full of donated stacks of chairs, all with sprung seats.  If you tried to sit in one (and I did) your behind would be dangerously close to the floor.  Why the facility didn't just toss 'em, I'll never know.

By the way, I was there at lunch time one day.  They had soup donated from a local company (that makes frozen packages of soup for restaurants) and it was salty beyond belief.  One of the staff members got sick on it.




My son worked at Goodwill for a time.  He said the regional office spent $100,000 per year for disposing of items.

[Shoo]

It wasn't as if I was buying one thing for me and a lesser quality thing for the pantry. It was exactly the same food. And it tasted fine.

Yes, it *is* exactly the same food.

What a lot of people don't realize is that there aren't actually as many canneries as there are "brands" of canned food.

What that means is this:  canneries can food.  Then they attach whatever label to it that they are contracted to.

The SAME canned product can appear under many different labels.  Very often that expensive store brand canned good is the exact same stuff as that less expensive store brand canned good.

I learned this working at a cannery.

[lovinAZ]

While I don't think that anyone who is truly in need should snub help offered (actually, I don't think anyone should snub a genuine offer for help, as long as it will actually be helpful), I don't think it is any crazier for someone who is poor to want designer clothes/the latest games or electronics/etc. than someone who would be in the same boat if their creditors came knocking.  A lot of people spend beyond their means, or buy things that they shouldn't given their financial situation, but it's only OK to rip on the poor about it...

I like to buy "brand" stuff to donate, because I see how much people enjoy it.  I'm not talking about $200 jeans or anything like that, but I do buy backpacks/notebooks/hats with cartoons on them or brand name foods to donate, for example.  I live in a nice house, own a reliable car, have a stable, steady, full-time job - I can afford to buy things that people will not only appreciate (out of need) but enjoy (out of want). 

Many many people who are living below the poverty line aren't there because they're lazy, aren't there because it's a great life to live, and aren't happy about needing handouts.  They see the same things that "everyone else has" that the rest of us do, and want it just the same.

[Tabris]

I don't think it is any crazier for someone who is poor to want designer clothes/the latest games or electronics/etc. than someone who would be in the same boat if their creditors came knocking.  A lot of people spend beyond their means, or buy things that they shouldn't given their financial situation, but it's only OK to rip on the poor about it...

In my case, I'm giving to the food pantry exactly the same stuff that I'm eating in my house: literally, I'll buy an eight-pack of spaghetti or a six-pack of soup, open it, donate two of the unopened containers, and keep the others in my pantry. If someone wants Ronzoni and I've donated the store brand, well, she can get that herself. Otherwise, on spaghetti night she and I are eating the same food.

BTW, if someone is making three million a year and consistently spends five million, yeah, I'm going to rip on that person instead of someone who's earning $15k a year and has no choice but to spend more than she makes if she intends to do frivolous things like eat and not be naked.

[lovinAZ]

BTW, if someone is making three million a year and consistently spends five million, yeah, I'm going to rip on that person instead of someone who's earning $15k a year and has no choice but to spend more than she makes if she intends to do frivolous things like eat and not be naked.

yes, but most of the time, we don't know about it, unless it's in the tabloids.  but many many many of the people who we see in "real life" are in a lot of debt (not even counting mortgages).