Discussion on Christmas shoe box appeal

GarIT

You may want to read this before you donate to those sort of things. A lot of the shoe boxes are rumored to be misused to blackmail children into becoming religious http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=81173993

aev

Thanks pixbyjohn.

Thanks GarlT.
I guess we just have to hope these things are being put to good use?
We put a lot of trust in people and organisations when we hand over charity, whether it be items like the shoeboxes or cash, but I think it shouldn't stop us.

recedite

aev wrote: »

I guess we just have to hope these things are being put to good use?
We put a lot of trust in people and organisations when we hand over charity, whether it be items like the shoeboxes or cash, but I think it shouldn't stop us.

Its not a question of "hope". Just do the research, and choose the charity.
If you want to spread protestant evangelical christianity to third world children, give to the shoe boxes. If you want to promote catholicism, give to "the missions". If you want to help poor people at home; SVDP. Homeless people; Focus Ireland. Drowning people; RNLI
etc etc.......

homer911

GarIT wrote: »

You may want to read this before you donate to those sort of things. A lot of the shoe boxes are rumored to be misused to blackmail children into becoming religious http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=81173993

Nobody can blackmail someone into becoming religious. But you should do your research. The Irish operation (TEAM HOPE) split from the U.S. operation (Samaritans Purse) for this very reason after some criticism a few years ago. There are no conditions attached to the receiving of an Irish shoebox and there is no religious material included with it. Only if a local distributor requests it is a note included explaining why the gift is being given. Check out their website...

Should have added that I volunteered at there depot in sandyford last year where I sealed the boxes with tape for customs purposes. The video's show the same boxes being opened overseas and there is definitely no religious literature included.

Their main depot is in cherrywood this year and volunteers are always welcome...

gozunda

homer911 wrote: »

Nobody can blackmail someone into becoming religious. But you should do your research. The Irish operation (TEAM HOPE) split from the U.S. operation (Samaritans Purse) for this very reason after some criticism a few years ago. There are no conditions attached to the receiving of an Irish shoebox and there is no religious material included with it. Only if a local distributor requests it is a note included explaining why the gift is being given. Check out their website...

So starting at the begining of the alphabet there is Brainwashing and Bribery and Corrupting the minds of young children to believe hogwash so that will get cheap tacky presents from organisations that are questionable at best


The donors may be Irish however the organisations objectives in my opinion are questionable

I realise that individuals donating may wish to give some poor kids presents unfortunately this generosity is being hijacked.

Who ever thought that shoeboxes could potentially be so nasty....

homer911

gozunda wrote: »

So starting at the begining of the alphabet there is Brainwashing and Bribery and Corrupting the minds of young children to believe hogwash so that will get cheap tacky presents from organisations that are questionable at best


The donors may be Irish however the organisations objectives in my opinion are questionable

I realise that individuals donating may wish to give some poor kids presents unfortunately this generosity is being hijacked.

Who ever thought that shoeboxes could potentially be so nasty....

You are misinformed or uninformed. I think the latter..

gozunda

homer911 wrote: »

You are misinformed or uninformed. I think the latter..

Of course I am - I will take myself outside and give myself a good talking to ....

Keep up the kiddy corruption - it's got a good history in this country....

GarIT

homer911 wrote: »

Nobody can blackmail someone into becoming religious. But you should do your research. The Irish operation (TEAM HOPE) split from the U.S. operation (Samaritans Purse) for this very reason after some criticism a few years ago. There are no conditions attached to the receiving of an Irish shoebox and there is no religious material included with it. Only if a local distributor requests it is a note included explaining why the gift is being given. Check out their website...

Should have added that I volunteered at there depot in sandyford last year where I sealed the boxes with tape for customs purposes. The video's show the same boxes being opened overseas and there is definitely no religious literature included.

Their main depot is in cherrywood this year and volunteers are always welcome...

I have done my research thats why I feel confident talking about it. If you say "I'll give you a box of toys if you become Christian" to a child that can't make an informed decision, I'd consider that blackmail. I interviewed (my polite word for questioned while pretending to support giving them religious materials) someone from Team Hope who said that "In the past children were asked to attend a mass before they could recieve a shoe box." Team Hope appear to have cleaned up their act now but you can be 100% sure they wont go back to their old ways. Shoe boxes are also often still distributed from church buildings. I have seen evidence of religious leaflets in the boxes in videos, I have also seen a video where a mother saks something like "Where do this gifts come from" and the voulnteer replies with "These are gifts from Jesus". Team Hope will tell you themselves that they add christmas cards to some boxes (it says it somewhere on their site) but what they dont say is that the cards usually contain a Christian prayer. While they seem to have stopped putting anything that bad in the shoe boxes they still hand out prayer books and small bibles at the same time as the shoeboxes. Things also happen like if they use a school building as a base for giving out shoe boxes they will leave a load of bibles with the shool. They really are sly f***ers.

Annasopra

Discussion split and moved from Greystones/Charelesland

homer911

GarIT wrote: »

I have done my research thats why I feel confident talking about it. If you say "I'll give you a box of toys if you become Christian" to a child that can't make an informed decision, I'd consider that blackmail. I interviewed (my polite word for questioned while pretending to support giving them religious materials) someone from Team Hope who said that "In the past children were asked to attend a mass before they could recieve a shoe box." Team Hope appear to have cleaned up their act now but you can be 100% sure they wont go back to their old ways. Shoe boxes are also often still distributed from church buildings. I have seen evidence of religious leaflets in the boxes in videos, I have also seen a video where a mother saks something like "Where do this gifts come from" and the voulnteer replies with "These are gifts from Jesus". Team Hope will tell you themselves that they add christmas cards to some boxes (it says it somewhere on their site) but what they dont say is that the cards usually contain a Christian prayer. While they seem to have stopped putting anything that bad in the shoe boxes they still hand out prayer books and small bibles at the same time as the shoeboxes. Things also happen like if they use a school building as a base for giving out shoe boxes they will leave a load of bibles with the shool. They really are sly f***ers.

Id love to see your proof all this, and to know what makes you so highly qualified to comment. As a casual volunteer and box checker, I can contradict most of it by the evidence of my own eyes. Maybe if you took that chip off your shoulder and the log out of your, you might reach an informed and unbiased opinion

recedite

homer911 wrote: »

As a casual volunteer and box checker, I can contradict most of it by the evidence of my own eyes. Maybe if you took that chip off your shoulder and the log out of your, you might reach an informed and unbiased opinion

Your argument seems to be based on the fact that you packed the boxes and sealed them with tape at "our" end, and there was no religious literature in them. But have you ever been in attendance when they were being handed out at the other end? Who was running the school/ church building, what talk was given beforehand, and what, if any, literature accompanied the shoeboxes?

GarIT

homer911 wrote: »

Id love to see your proof all this, and to know what makes you so highly qualified to comment. As a casual volunteer and box checker, I can contradict most of it by the evidence of my own eyes. Maybe if you took that chip off your shoulder and the log out of your, you might reach an informed and unbiased opinion

There is more than one orginisation that does this, Team Hope seem to be just about keeping clean, but there are other orginisation which definately aren't. Why would somebody have to be highly qualified to comment? If it makes that much of a difference to you in 2008 I ran the shoe box appeal in my school and help out outside the school that year too. I rather believe someone who has been abroad with team hope and pervious orginisations than some annonymous person on the internet. You say you could disagree but you don't you just tell me to log off instead of you making a point.

All you can really say is that you have seen one orginisation that didn't do anything wrong while you were there, you cant really speak for all of them.

Maggie 2

After the controversy of Irish aid and the amount paid to Charity chiefs, I think people should think long and hard about giving to ANY overseas charity. Give instead to something local, like Hospice care, St Vincent de Paul, Simon Community, local care centres for the elderly, etc. Charity begins at home.

D4RK ONION

While I myself find some of the motives behind the shoeboxes dubious, this really isn't in the spirit of the forum. Atheism & Agnosticism have a very interesting thread on the subject and I feel discussion would be better served there. For that reason I am going to just save us the religious warfare and close this thread for all our sakes.