Generally speaking, I am not a fan of charitable efforts where the people who collect donations have to personally hand it to the people who need it. It's good for the giver but I worry that it can embarrass the person who is receiving the donation sometimes. I think programs like that are often in place to make the people who are giving feel good more than to help and I have issues with that, so I would not have planned things this way.
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Day Shelter Field Trip
Today the Daisy Girl Scouts (and the feeling-better LSG, who is their program aide, and who was representing her troop) took the donations of toiletries that both troops collected to the Mother Teresa Shelter, a day shelter for people who are homeless. I expected the girls would drop the donations off and get a tour and an explanation of what the shelter does, but things worked out a little differently. The people using the shelter congregate right in the room that you first walk into, so the shelter staff looked at the girls with their boxes and asked if they wanted to walk around and pass out the toiletries. We said okay (what could you say?) and the girls casually walked around the room of people sitting at tables and held out the boxes of toothbrushes , combs and deodorants so that the people could sift through them and take what they needed. The girls, as usual, were cheerful and calm about all this. They are not shy.
Still, it's kind of different with the Daisy Girl Scouts. I think all the people in the shelter could see the value of teaching little kindergarteners to be charitable in a casual, natural way and didn't mind being part of that. They seemed to enjoy seeing the cute kids as they walked their boxes around. They could see those of us who were chaperoning our kids more as people there to teach the kids than as people there to give stuff to them. I don't think they felt uncomfortable around us. I definitely think it was good for the girls to see how different people live and for the people who they are helping to be real to them. We are trying hard to teach them the value of service while they are still so young and their minds so absorbent.
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2 comments:
What a great project.
I am not a fan of personally hanging charitable donations to receivers, either. When I worked at the daycare center for homeless children, we'd periodically get people who wanted to be "Santa Claus" (in one case, literally) and hand out treats to the kids. I understand that they wanted to be the ones to bring joy to the kids, but often as not, what they would bring is chaos. What the Daisy Girl Scouts did was far different, though, and sounds like it was a good interchange.
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