Charity Scam and begging

[Mrs. Valentine]

My brother lives in downtown Toronto, so as you can imagine, he sees A LOT of this. When he first moved there, he was handing out change like crazy..... Then he read an ariticle in the paper that talked about a guy on the street who saved what he collected and how in addition to food & clothing, he was able to get a place to live etc... In one year the guy figured he had made more than $60 000 and struggled with the notion of getting a "real" entry level job that paid $25 000/yr.

After that, realizing that most of the people he was giving cash to were spending their $60 000/yr on drugs and alcohol, my brother starting working into his budget an amount for "giving". He's an actor so he gets paid in random chunks, and when he gets a pay check he takes 5% and buys $5 gift cards for Coffee Time, Starbucks, Subway etc. He hands these out to the panhandlers and when he runs out, he simply tells them, "Sorry I'm all out for now."

I don't see this very often in Red Deer, but I guess if it's going to happen, I might have to follow the wisdom of my baby bro.

[MostarkaGirl]

My brother lives in downtown Toronto, so as you can imagine, he sees A LOT of this. When he first moved there, he was handing out change like crazy..... Then he read an ariticle in the paper that talked about a guy on the street who saved what he collected and how in addition to food & clothing, he was able to get a place to live etc... In one year the guy figured he had made more than $60 000 and struggled with the notion of getting a "real" entry level job that paid $25 000/yr.

After that, realizing that most of the people he was giving cash to were spending their $60 000/yr on drugs and alcohol, my brother starting working into his budget an amount for "giving". He's an actor so he gets paid in random chunks, and when he gets a pay check he takes 5% and buys $5 gift cards for Coffee Time, Starbucks, Subway etc. He hands these out to the panhandlers and when he runs out, he simply tells them, "Sorry I'm all out for now."

I don't see this very often in Red Deer, but I guess if it's going to happen, I might have to follow the wisdom of my baby bro.

Very good. This is what I also suggested to my husband. So, this year for Xmas we might do this.

[Poirot]

Tonight on Ross St a lady I think was trying to hit me up for money I just ignored her she started swearing basically the four letter f word then she starts bothering someone else then I she starts after me again with the f word.I hide in the library until bus time.Today a man was hitting me up for spare change at Shoppers Drug Mart Village Mall.

[Eeyah]

I had to laugh, last night we had some kids come by selling some "book" for Crimestoppers. Dh answered the door (he's wayyyy more polite than me). Anyway these kids (ok young adults) were trying to sell him on the fact that "crime is high" in our neighbourhood and by buying this book we'd be helping increase "presence" in the area. So DH tells them "no maybe later" and they go on to say that they've been in our community for 3 months and this is "the last week". I was in the kitchen making dinner and snickering....I live in Blackfalds so I'd love for them to enlighten me on how on earth you could spend 3 months canvassing our tiny community. That combined with the fact that I've never heard of any above normal crime in the area.....oh and we just got 5 new officers with the new police station. I guess as they were walking down the walkway off our property DH heard the boy (there was a boy & girl) mutter "gee that was a waste" heaven forbid I had been the one to answer the door, if I had heard the kid utter that I totally would have given him an earfull Oh and this "book" was a "steal of deal" at $30 (I think I heard them say it was a colouring book).