My 4 year old son came home from school yesterday with this leaflet called “Samaritans’ ■■■■■.” I know it sounds like a Viz book but they want kids (parents) to fill shoeboxes with NEW toys (specifically not used) and add books, pens, pencils etc. They want you to wrap it, pay for bloody shipping (so it’s not for needy kids in Britain then?). No liquids (I suppose they might make explosives with it) and no toys with military/political/religious overtones.
■■■■■ sake these religious “must make a mud hut in Kenya” sorts need to realise beggars can’t be choosers.
I’m expecting some sort of comment from the school when we send Sweet FA.
Rant over, as you were. 
i’m in tune with you nathan , charities are just another industry now . why well into my 70s do i regularly get letters from help the aged asking for donations ? when i was young ( yes that long ago ) we used to send our old toys to dr barnardo’s homes , at least it was a british charity . dave
Yep charity overload now.
Got to the point about the only ones i bother with are the Legion, Sally Ann and the hospice type like McMillan.
paid chuggers better be ready for a good earful of my annoyance if they approach me in the street.
Can well understand you being cheesed Muckaway, brainwash the poor little buggers from the very start.
Well having done a Google Search, this “Samaritans’ ■■■■■” stems from the US and the bible thumping Evangelist movement. No wonder in their flyer it said they give presents and introduce kids to God and prayer. Not very approving comments about it on the net. Why doesn’t the school do a similar xmas box appeal for the Oxford Childrens Hospital or something for bereaved forces families, what with Raf Brize 10 minutes drive away?
Puzzled as to why you didn`t just post on my thread instead of starting another?
However, have to agree that our own country should always be considered first when it comes to help of a charitable nature. As uncharitable as it sounds, i think of our own underprivileged kids before i consider the woes of some strange and distant land. We can never put the world to rights (just consider how many African leaders live in obscene luxury and opulence, while their poor, wretched people die in droves of malnutrition and perfectly preventable/curable maladies), but we can surely help to improve our own back yard. I also “think of the children” first - (sorry for that!) 
as they have not had a shot at life yet, and are far more vulnerable than their adult counterparts.
As said, charity (like nearly all things that start out as well intended) has been sullied and tarnished by unscrupulous opportunists, but there are still some genuine home-grown causes out there that fully deserve our help.
youtube.com/watch?v=bBzqVgOhFnQ
Champagne Socialist tossers.Where nothing ever grows no rain or rivers flow. 
worldbank.org/en/news/featur … ess-report
beefandlamb.ahdb.org.uk/market-i … k-rebound/
inica.org/African-Agricultural-Exports.htm
They supposedly can’t feed their own people but they’ve got half the world’s fertile land and they think the way to solve their problems is by exporting what they’ve got.Including beef to us and zb China with our help.
Other than the poppy appeal only charity I give to is the hospice who looked after my mum before she died.
We do a soup kitchen at our church with the local sikih temple for the homeless in the community and can’t get any funding off the likes of comic relief or shelter all on donations from our congregations and local business all small shops none of the chains want to know as there head office deal with this and only deal with the usual suspects.