I don't really like organized charity in general, and The Gazette Christmas fund in particular really irks my ire, gets my goat and annoys my ass. Here's the latest sad-sack story they've trotted out in a pathetic endeavour to try and guilt an already financially strained public into forking over more cash for their cause:
Gazette Christmas Fund: Single mother of three unable to work
Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Gazette+Christmas+Fund+Single+mother+three+unable+work/5883196/story.html#ixzz1hEpEY4Eu
MONTREAL - Miriam knows how a nice-looking home can mask the poverty within.
As an unemployed single parent, she lives with her mother, grandmother and three children in the Town of Mount Royal.
“People are under the misconception that we have, but we don’t,” she said.
She doesn’t work because she can’t or because she doesn’t want to. She’s doesn’t work because when the telephone rings there’s a good chance there’s a principal on the other end, phoning about her 12-year-old son.
“I have a son with behaviour issues, so for the past two years being able to work has been sort of impossible because anywhere I go he gets suspended often. I have to be at home for the phone calls,” she said.
Four years ago, Miriam was making progress. She was on her way back to work when her son’s behavioural issues started to occur. It was around the same time she was in the beginning stages of cervical cancer.
“That was like my darkest days,” she said. “Things are starting to look better.”
Miriam is among the thousands who are to receive a $125 cheque from The Gazette Christmas Fund this year. The money helps families and individuals in need get through the holiday season.
At 43 years old, Miriam is cancer-free and even though she relies on her family to help make ends meet, she feels she’s on the right track.
“If it wasn’t for them, I don’t know where I’d be with my kids,” she said.
With three generations living one house, family traditions are well kept in the household.
“They’re not materialistic kids at all, but I know they would like to have a lot of what their friends have. But they don’t because we’re more on family traditions and I’ve always emphasized that Christmas isn’t about what you get.”
She has done her best to shield her struggles from her children by making sure they don’t see how hard it is for Miriam to meet their needs.
“I don’t want to ruin their childhood with my issues, with my problems.”
Miriam said she can’t compete with the presents her children’s friends have wrapped under the tree, but she’ll spend the Christmas Fund money on buying them what they need.
“My daughters, a decent pair of pants,” she said. “My son, I don’t know what I’m going to get him yet. He’s really into hockey, the Montreal Canadiens.”
Blahrg! I have so many problems with this "charity case", I don't even know where to begin!
First of all, the woman in this story lives in TMR (Town of Mount Royal), an upper-class suburb of Montreal. Sell the house in TMR, turn a tidy profit and downsize to something smaller & more affordable if you need $125 so badly! She claims she "can't work" due to her son's behaviour issues, what with all the phone calls she receives about him & his rotten behaviour from his school principal all the time. Are these calls coming in daily, then? If the kid is a brat, isn't that partly her fault in the first place? The kid dosen't go to school 7 days a week, does he? A couple weekend shifts here and there at Wal-Mart would be enough to supply the $125 she needs so desperately that she had to turn to The Gazette: Christmas Fund. Surely she can get her ass out of the house a day or two a week, when her ill-behaved boy isn't at school, and work someplace part-time? While I feel sorry that this woman had cancer, the article does state she is now cancer-free so her health shouldn't be an issue for the working thing either. It seems to me like this woman is simply just lazy, too lazy to work for a living and that's the type of person the Christmas Fund seems to want to support and coddle. I hate the Gazette in general and thier charity in particular. Where is the boy in this story's father? There are too many questions here that don't add up.
All it equals out to in the end is the fact I won't be donating a penny to their charity.
The Christmas Fund is not a charity worth supporting.
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