Charity balls are bullshit
I get a lot of newsletters in the mail from various charities that support youth in and from care. I still enjoy reading newsletters, but the other day I read something in a newsletter that really made me think.
It was a notice for a fancy wine, cheese and food event at a posh golf club. The event will raise money for their charity, which in turn will benefit kids in foster care.
They describe it as an “amazing night of local and international wines featuring an exquisite collection of Shirazes, Chardonnays, Pinot Gris and Merlots. Gourmet food from local restaurants and artisan food merchants will tantalize your taste buds.”
Tickets are $60 and VIP tickets are $100, which provide access to the VIP Lounge.
The charity in question has a solid reputation for doing wonderful work to raise money and awareness for some kids in foster care. So I really don’t want to bash them, but as a former foster kid I do have a few reflections.
Firstly, I don’t really associate foster kids with “international wines” and “gourmet foods”. I may be wrong, but in my experience and that of most people I know, foster kids and former foster kids rarely get invited to these events. It’s clearly targeted to people with time and money to spare.
My friend Geordie Clarke is a journalist over in the United Kingdom. He believes that these fancy charity function are unseemly and far too common.
“I’ve been to charity balls before,” he says from his ‘flat’ in London. “I always felt that it was a horrendous waste. An excuse for wealthy people to feel good about themselves while also indulging in their upper class bullshit.”
I’ll continue this thought and say it’s a way that people with money can live it up and alleviate some of the guilt they might have about the growing gulf between their own lifestyle and that of the lower classes.
I assume that the people going to this particular function believe hat children from care should have a fair shot at a stable, successful adulthood. Fair enough. They want a better world for foster kids – that’s good.
But in my experience, and I know there are exceptions to this rule, people who drop $60 or $100 for an evening of wine and entertainment in the name of charity have an annoying tendency to support political parties and governments that create the need for charity.
In British Columbia we call those people Liberals.
When the Liberals came to power back in 2001 they made some very dramatic cuts to social programs, including foster care. Some ministries were slashed by as much as 40 per cent and this has a drastic impact on vulnerable peoples throughout the province.
It was a more than a government transition, but a terrible change in how we treat the poor and vulnerable. The damage done in the last eight years will be felt for decades.
In the “old” society there were more programs and services in place that attempted to level the playing field and provide vulnerable people, including foster kids, real access to many of the same opportunities available to kids from middle class homes.
Now that most of these opportunities are gone there’s been a huge need for charities to step in and attempt to fill the gap.
And rich people are only too happy to donate to charity. Charities for the most part are apolitical organizations that provide middle class and rich people an opportunity to feel good. They also provide a few lucky individuals with high paying jobs.
They rarely challenge the status quo.
The charity that is holding this event for foster kids, for example, did an interview with me last year over the radio documentary I produced about foster care. They were writing a piece about my experiences in care for their newsletter. When they asked me what needed to change for the system to improve I said “people need to vote the Liberals out of office and then maybe we can talk.” They told me they couldn’t print that because it was a political message.
One of my college teachers Anne Roberts, who was once a city councilor, said the problem with charity is that it all depends on the good will of people who are in a position to donate. If rich people, for example, are annoyed by the political statements in a charity’s newsletter, they could just refuse to donate. If enough people stop donating then the charity folds and poor people go hungry or without shelter or whatever.
That’s bullshit.
Everyone in British Columbia has a right to basic standard of living. Food, shelter, health care and justice are not a privilege to be earned but a basic right for all, especially children. While we all depend on the kindness and goodwill of others we should never neglect our society so much than charity becomes a lifeline for so many.
WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO GO CANUCKS!!!!
There’s nothing wrong with having a big fancy, obnoxious party where you can be ridiculous and make a show of yourself, but don’t try to pass it off as something good and virtuous!
About charity balls…if you’ve never read it, I think you would really enjoy the passages from “Bleak House” about charity, a lot. It was fun to find out that way back in 1852-1853, the same nonsense you describe not only existed, but that someone else had the same kinds of reactions and feelings about it that you describe.
One of the reasons I stopped donating to the Big Gay Causes, back when I was a very idealistic youth, was because I soon learned that every time they asked for money, or invited you to an event, they asked HUGE amounts — to the point that it seemed clearly about supporting and fostering some kind of exclusivity.
Funding charity efforts IS expensive. (I was on the board of a womens shelter, one year). But so is holding a dinner, a ball, an “evening of entertainment.” I personally think that a lot of what’s behind those kinds of events is less a desire to help people, and more a desire to do something “fun” and fashionable, to see and be seen.
Sweet! That sounds like a lot of fun.
I know that it takes a lot of creative fundraising initiatives to keep many community events afloat.
My objection to these events is when they are used to raise money for basic social services that should be covered by the government.
In these instances charity balls serve as a sickening reminder of the widening gap between the rich and the poor in our society.
I have never been to SUCH a fancy wine and cheese event but recently I went to a small wine, cheese and chocolate event in PG held to raise money for the local PG Rollergirls (a sport where girls on rollerskates race around a rink and elbow each other). The tickets were $20 and included 3 glasses of wine, as much cheese, chocolate and crackers that you wanted, an awesome DJ and a burlesque show. Although the event was small, mostly just friends and family members of the rollergirls turned out but I think it was an excellent way to raise money. The cost to put on such an event was probably much less than the amount of money they made from tickets and extra glasses of wine they sold. That is my 2 cents.