Thanks for "volunteering"
Last year Kat wrote about her pet peeve - school fund raisers:
I loathe school fundraisers.
I don’t like them because I feel as though the school is using my child as a pawn to get me to buy stuff.
I don’t need $30 Christmas cards. Or $25 pizza dough. Or $50 wrapping paper.
I just want my daughter to go to school and not be asked to spend her free time hitting up neighbors for overpriced junk.
The most annoying thing for me is that my daughter already goes to a private school. We’re already paying for her education. Why can’t they just raise the tuition?
Amen. We, too, send our children to parochial school and I agree - if they want more money for activities and what not they should just charge more. At some point I think everyone ends up with fund raising fatigue, especially since we're just off the Cub Scout popcorn and Girl Scout cookie season.
But what really got to me was a recent robotic phone call we received from the school phone system (the same system that's used to send out notices when school is canceled or there's a terrorist holding the children hostage). In this Very Important Message the principal said to be sure to check each child's backpack that evening for information about the upcoming fund raising "fun fair", which would include what we are expected to supply for the auction and sales and when we are scheduled to work at it. Closed with a nice, "Thanks for volunteering."
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I would gladly pay to get out of the "privilege" of "volunteering". Just tell me what your expected take is, let me know my proportion as determined by dividing my three by the total number of students, and I will write you a check. It will be worth it in terms of saving my time and hassle and frustration at being drafted, er, I mean "volunteered", especially on a Friday night (which we are trying to block out for family time since Les works two double shifts every weekend). I would bet most parents would feel the same. Just tell us up front how much we're being shaken down for. Run it like a protection racket:
"It'd be a shame if we didn't get enough money for activities and had to hold a fun fair, wouldn't it, Lenny?"
"Yeah, yeah - dat's right, boss!"
Grrr...
10 comments:
Oh, and just as a little follow up to myself that Kat brushed up against. Don't such things promote the very culture of consumerism we're all supposed to hate as Good Christians? I mean, they're predicated on us buying things we don't need.
Just yesterday a little girl came and sold us about $30 worth of cookie dough for her school. And not five minutes ago another girl came by selling $5 "raffle tickets" for a "pancake breakfast" for her softball league.
And I'm such a sucker. I really am. I'm not sure that I've ever sent a solicitor away from my door empty handed. Girl scouts, fire department fundraisers, school and sports events. They could all be total scams, run by a clever family down the street, and I probably wouldn't know the difference.
CH,
I am a sucker for such things, too. As I said in my comment on Kat's blog:
"OTOH, and just to contradict myself, I will pretty much try and buy something from any kid that comes door-to-door. My REAL pet peeve are those people who take in the sheets for their kid(s) and leave them on the kitchen counter at work for their co-workers to do the kid’s work for them. To me, there’s a big difference between rewarding a kid for getting out and doing some door-to-door (if that’s what they want to do) as opposed to just having the parents do it for them the easy way out."
Heh. I had forgotten about the old "sell stuff for your kid at work" trick. I've worked from my home for the last couple of years, and as I sit here racking my brain, can't honestly think of anything I miss about working in an office environment. Maybe going to lunch with a couple of friends from time to time. Or maybe I sometimes miss human interaction. But not too much.
(That sounds bad, coming from somebody who considers it one of my God-given primary directives in life to "love my neighbor".)
I telecommuted full time from 1995-2001 except for 1998. And yes, the biggest thing I missed was personal interactions like lunch. There wasn't much else.
The funny thing is I've been at my current job for over three years now and have made NO friends. None. That is something new for me - I literally have friends from every place I've ever worked as an adult. From some jobs a whole slew of them. But there's something about the atmosphere and particular people at this job that just make friendships seem out of reach. So now I work in an office every day and am lonelier than when I telecommuted. Go figure.
I do agree that times and required donations shouldn't be "assigned" as you've described. But I've been on every side of this question...public and private, donations and/or volunteer hours required and not, and people being able to "buy" their way out of volunteer requirements, or not.
In truth I love that schools require parents to be involved on some level more than just financial. In my experience it worked best when the parents were offered a variety of ways and time frames in which to contribute, but in the end it's not about the school or it's funds, in my mind, but in the impact it has on our kids that we care enough about their school and education to be involved there, to know the other kids, the other parents and the staff. It means the world to my 2nd grader. When given the choice and the means to pay more and opt out of volunteering, I declined for these reasons.
But that's just me, from my little corner.
:) Right there with ya... and my kids are barely old enough for this to *really* start happening...
Erin,
I agree we all need to be involved in our kids' schools, and that's fine. My issue was in the heavy-handed way in which it is done. In fact, there's STILL a real "f--- you" reaction in my head that makes me want to decline to participate. Because it reeks of that whole nicey-nice-yet-passive-aggressive-Christian approach to things. Because I will be the bad guy if I rock the boat, and they know that and just think they can do this and get away with it, because for the most part and for most parents they can and will. I still say, "Grrr..."
Chris,
Just wait - it's coming. :-)
I get you about the approach. That is definitely rough.
I'm sorry if I misread you, I thought you were saying that you'd prefer everyone to just pay more rather than volunteer.
Erin,
I can see how you could have misread it that way, but really, my whole beef was just around the coercion of it all. It rankles and will rankle.
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