Money begging?

[Phishfan]

No, I'm not asking about the bums on the corner you would usually think of. I live near a Publix that has a baseball, softball, high school band, etc standing outside every weekend. They aren't selling anything they are just beginning. What happened to offering a service? When I was in college if my fraternity wanted to host the biggest party we would spend an entire Saturday washing cars to fund it. These kids just hold a jug (using the same location every week) and hope people just keep giving up the money. It really burns my ass. I'm relieved when I see the Girl  Scouts.

Do any of you experience anything similar? Am I just grumpy and over reacting?

[MyGodWearsAHoodie]

Doesn't work in my town.  We have sports teams that do car washes and about 80% of the money they get is from people who just gave money and didn't have their car washed.  So a couple of times teams tried to just ask for money with no car wash -- each time raising almost no money.  Likewise one organization that held twice annual bake sale in which over half the people who gave money not taking any food and many others paying $10 for a 50¢ cupcake made almost zero money when they tried begging. 

[Spider-Dan]

What happened to offering a service? When I was in college if my fraternity wanted to host the biggest party we would spend an entire Saturday washing cars to fund it. These kids just hold a jug (using the same location every week) and hope people just keep giving up the money. It really burns my ass. I'm relieved when I see the Girl  Scouts.

I thought this until the Girl Scouts showed up asking for $15 for a bag of caramel corn.

At that point, I'd rather just donate $5 and move on with my day.

edit: Hoodie called it

[Dave Gray]

I have not seen this in my area yet, but I wouldn't like it.

I generally am pretty good about buying a token thing and there are lots of them.  My kids' school is always ready to reach into your shirt and pinch your tit 'till it's purple with some kind of fundraiser.

[Fau Teixeira]

I'll just say that I don't see that at all in CT. Schools are properly funded, we pay 0 out of pocket for supplies. Extra curricular costs are minimal. ($60 for a full season of basketball, and they give you the jerseys).
Breakfast and lunches are also universally 0 cost to students.

[CF DolFan]

I'll just say that I don't see that at all in CT. Schools are properly funded, we pay 0 out of pocket for supplies. Extra curricular costs are minimal. ($60 for a full season of basketball, and they give you the jerseys).
Breakfast and lunches are also universally 0 cost to students.

It's not for schools or at least not the ones I've seen. It's usually youth travel teams looking for support. We used to spend over 10K for youth sports so it has to be twice that now with inflation. Hell ... it could cost three times as much.

My daughter just had them quote her for a new AC on a 900 sq ft condo and the quotes were 8-11 thousand dollars. We just put in a new Carrier system in the 2200 sq ft home we sold for around $6,500 in 2020.  In my opinion begging for help is going to get a lot worse before it gets any better. Actually I should probably say "if" it gets any better.

[Phishfan]

CF has it correct, most of them are outside of school. The only school activity was the band and they were raising money for a trip to Rome which I dare say is outside the funding of any school district.

[Brian Fein]

When I worked at Publix, we had a pee-wee football team show up one saturday and they were holding their helmets trying to raise money to travel to some tournament.

They must have been pretty successful because the next 3 or 4 saturdays, 4 of the kids just randomly showed up without the coaches or other teammates, with their helmets begging people for money.  Until our store manager called and said they couldn't come every weekend and the coach had no idea that the players were there.  I guess they just wanted money for themselves.

Its not always on the up-and-up...

[Dave Gray]

I don't want to make this about politics, but it's kind of part of who I am.

I am a believer, in general, of fully funding things with the government for things like schools, after school programs, community outreach, etc.  Because of that, I don't really like organizations that operate on this kind of begging/charity.  This goes for firemen collecting money on the side of the road in a boot, point of sale donations at grocery stores, etc.

There is a bit of a gray area.  I don't mind certain fundraisers through schools, but they kind of have to offer a service.  I don't know that I'm always logically consistent.  I don't really mind a school having a spaghetti dinner and raffle to overcharge so the kids can go on a trip to Washington DC.  But their instruments should be paid for and not rely on this kind of thing.