Columnists
Charity begins at home
The more I hear about charitable organizations and how uncharitable some of them really are, the more likely I am to avoid donating.
Last week, the City of Toronto, the GTA, City of Orillia and the City of Brockville were knocked back on their collective butts when the doors of their Goodwill stores closed. Little bits of printer paper were scotchtaped to the front doors of Goodwill retail outlets notifying staff, shoppers and donors the stores were closed.
How many times have you and I made a contribution to a Goodwill store or charity? I think it’s safe to say most of us have at sometime in our lives. Goodwill was a name we knew and trusted. Closures! What the H E double-bagged, secondhand bulky sweaters and used toasters is that all about? Although we don’t have a Goodwill store in our immediate area, I have shopped at Goodwill many times over the years. I’m proud to say I am a thrift shopper. But seriously, what was Goodwill Industries thinking when they hired someone who had a reputation for running the charity’s funds through a previously enjoyed slow cooker? For 80 years, Goodwill Industries has operated as an organization with the power to change lives. And then? Well, and then the trust of the community was broken by one person, Keiko Nakamura. Nakamura blamed the closing of Goodwill Industries on a cash flow problem. Perhaps it was the same kind of cash flow problem she bestowed upon Toronto Community Housing Coporation. The irregularities in the TCHC books resulted in Nakamura being put out for pick up. And then? Well, and then Goodwill picked her up.
So, what’s my point? Well, I do have one. I used to be all about being ready for the phone call about a pickup date, then putting my donations out on my front porch. The calls came from charities like The Clothesline, the Canadian Diabetes Association and the Ontario Federation for Cerebral Palsy. For a diehard lazyarse like myself, it was easy to bundle things up in a plastic bag, tag it and leave it on the front porch. Within a couple of hours, the bundle was gone. For about an hour, I felt like I’d made a huge contribution to the world and I didn’t have to physically take the donation anywhere. I didn’t have to sort it out and shuffle it off to one of the County’s local thrift shops. I didn’t have to think about seeing my clothes on someone in the community—for some reason, that really bothered me. Don’t get me wrong—I have donated to the local shops, but basically, I really am lazy. The truth of the matter is, if I was going to donate locally, those boxes and bags would spend more time in my front hall than they had in my closets or on my shelves. At times, my house looked as if an episode of Hoarders was about to be filmed. Oops. My point is from now on, I’ll be bagging and boxing things to take to our local charities or I will contact friends and neighbours to see if what I happen to have might enjoy some quality time in their front hall, closet or on their shelves.
Donating at the community level—monetary or material—empowers a community. Anyone want to be empowered with 108 litres of Lego, or 47 previously enjoyed Star Wars figures or 15 tattyhaired Barbie dolls?
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