Friday, September 28, 2007

How can we stop this?

It happened again today..on my way home from work, there they were...a bunch of young kids darting back and forth through the traffic at the Microl Intersection collection money from cars. Why oh Why don't the police put a stop to this???? I myself am guilty of this type of fundraising back in the day when I was on the Red Cross board. I never thought anything of it when we did it... and infact I would always stop and drop change in the buckets of the people who were fundraising before...that was up until a couple months ago when I witness a group of dancers who were holding up cardboard signs and had thier jars out...the kids looked like they were in grade school ranging in age from 7 or 8 to maybe 15 -16... The leader of the group, an older lady was standing in the middle of the road on the island and when the light turned red, she began pushing one of the kids trying to get her to run out to the road and collect money...the girl looked frightened and hesitant to do it, but the older lady pushed and prodded her till she took off darting in between the cars trying to get people to donate...I then realized how SERIOUSLY dangerous this type of fundraising is! Someone is going to get seriously hurt soon...Is this even legal? It seems like the police should be able to stop this since its a traffic hazard...If I remember correctly, when we did this for the Red Cross we had to seek permission from DPS, I wonder if every group out there seeks permission to do this? It just seems so dangerous especially for the young kids out there...

One thing I did notice is that it seems more people are realizing how dangerous this is and not stopping or rolling down their windows to put money in the jars...most of the jars the kids were holding seemed pretty empty...could just be a sign of the times...but I myself will no longer put money in the jars of these fundraisers...not because I don't want to support their cause, but because I want to prevent a serious accident from happening...

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

what ever happened to car washes, bake sales, yard cleaning and other creative fundraising events.. have we gotten so lazy where we are now subjecting are kids to panhandling and teaching them an easy way to make a buck.. getting them ready for the streets in san francisco, new york, etc.. seriously, we need to stop this pan handling crap and teach kids how to make a buck honestly through hard work...

Anonymous said...

or maybe they are waiting for a car to hit one of the kids then they will hire a lawyer to file a lawsuit against the driver to make some quick bucks..

Lil' Hammerhead said...

Every time I see this I think of the same thing. It's only a matter of time before someone gets seriously injured.

Jeff said...

Amen.

Bon said...

You need a food handler's permit to have bake sales now. The adults who let kids collect money should be reprimanded. Did anyone notice it's road waving season? There's another street menace.

glend558 said...

After the money is panhandled it is probably then stolen by the panhandler promoters. I never gave to these beggers because I don't think the money goes to the 'cause' anyway.

Lil' Hammerhead said...

So.. having pondered your question, "How do we stop this", I've come up with a solution!

- Run over the children

Simple eh? As soon as you do this, it will be stopped. (For Boni) A side benefit will be a drop in the student to teacher ratio in a class or two.

I know that was bad, as true as it is.

Bon said...

That was horrid and not very funny. Children are reading this you know. Go sit in the corner.