Why oh Why is it so hard to make a Donation
It seems like every year at Christmas I participate in some sort of donation program. Whether it be the shoe box donations (we did this as kids and always made a shoe box for someone our age) or various other programs. This year after picking up my donation for the toy drive box at work I still had some money left over and couldn't help but notice I have numerous extra coupons I will not be using by their expiry dates and no one has wanted to trade for. So I thought why not take these coupons and my extra money and see just what I could get combining the two. I have to say so far I have done pretty well. I have numerous items to packed up and donated. Well here comes the problem.
In the summer my Nanny passes away and I took on the task of cleaning out her kitchen. To my shock I found food everywhere in her kitchen, ever cupboard seem to have food in it. So I sorted all of the food and decided that most of it would be donated as either we had no use for it or I was already completely stocked up on that items so we would never use it before it expired. We ended up with 11 grocery bags to donate (WOW this was even after all of the items I threw out and the items we keep or I donated to someone I knew could use them). I packaged everything up nice and neat contacted our food bank (they are only open for 6 hours a week and a number of people in town had told me they do not accept donations during these hour, HUH so how do I make a donation???????????????). It took me 5 phone calls and 2 emails and 7 weeks (there would have been more call made but during this time my nanny passed away, this process started when she went in the hospital and we found out she would not be coming home). I could not believe how hard it was to make the donation, there were many a time as horrible as it sounds we discussed throwing out the food as we really had no where to keep these 11 bags (we had moved all of my Nanny's stuff into our house and were living in a sea of boxes not to mention random pieces of furniture placed anywhere they would fit). Finally after 7 weeks someone called us back and said for all of our trouble they would come by and pick up the donations. This was great but they still did not tell me how to make a donation in the future, I asked but he just keep talking about picking up the current donation.
So this time around I decided to look for another charity to donate too. We live in a small town so our options are limited. I deiced to try to donate to the local women's shelter again key word TRIED. I went on their web site only to find a very specific list what will and won't be accepted. Like many people when the Barilla Pasta was on sale at Sobey's I went in and picked up my boxes for $0.13, when I was there they only had linguine and penne, I cannot donate these as they only accept spagetti and sprials. I have tried contacting them with no response back asking if they would accept what I have that is not included on their donation lists.
Why oh why is it so hard to make a donation. These are really great causes and you see them reaching out in the papers for donations but when you try to donate it feels like it is impossible. I have now made another round of phone calls hopefully I hear something back before Christmas.
