They make a lot of memories here at WDW. Oddly enough they don’t accept them as payment.
I’ll continue to advocate for teaching a person to fish over “hey, do you remember when grandma told us about eating that fish one time?”
Doing the right thing often requires a long term view from both sides. How much of your take on this subject has to do with making yourself feel better in the short term?
I’ve been poor and can honestly say I’d never have spent money on a holiday if I was lucky enough to be gifted some.
You are coming from the same exact POV that I would have shared with you 8 years ago, before I started this journey.
While a completely different situation, I wrote this quote down during a presentation made during our annual training for the tutoring program: “I’m not thinking about college, I am thinking about surviving.”
It is futile to try to get these kids to think about this nebulous, far-off distant concept of college that could make their lives better when every single morning they wake up hungry and don’t know if they are going to get any food that day. They go to school, but can’t concentrate (and even if they could, they aren’t getting the best education). So when we show up and try to talk to them about how hard they should work so that they can go to college one day, that is so far from their minds that it is meaningless. The program I am involved in has maybe 30 kids each Saturday. We get them for 2 hours. And our primary goal isn’t even really to teach them anything. Our primary goal is to show them that someone cares. And for about 90% of the kids who show up, they are there because we provide a breakfast and lunch.
I’ll wager it’s no easier to convince them that they haven’t screwed themselves up so bad that a decent future is still attainable after prison (in the cases where this is actually true). Logic and experience suggest to me that your chances of success are better than mine. I very well could be wrong. Either way I know it’s the exact opposite of simple and easy.
Getting back to the original question, she was up front about what the donations were for, and if people wanted to help her take here kids to WDW, then good on all of them
This is very true. Right now we are dealing with my sister in hospital and sedated - a smart and loving woman who has had nothing but bad luck even though she works as hard as anyone you know.
Combine that with terrible money issues and no health insurance due to a company that was not forthcoming on intentions when hiring. Plus a pending home foreclosure. We are trying to figure out how to get her and my niece (who is unemployed) through it just for the short term and I really have no good answers.
PSA: Make sure you have friends or family who can get to and use your information if you are incapacitated. We are having trouble just finding info we need, which isn’t helpful when they still haven’t figured out exactly what all of her health issues are (she hasn’t seen a doctor in many years.) and this appears like it is going to be a long event.
I keep popping in here and chat in between work and researching social services just to take quick breaks so my brain doesn’t implode.
Please, feel free to use us as your steam-outlet. I’m sure your head is spinning pretty hard right now.
I’m so sorry for what your sister - and all of you, as her family - are going through.
So, I know Wikipedia and Reddit have banned the use of the Daily Mail as as source. “Consensus has determined that the Daily Mail (including its online version dailymail .co.uk) is generally unreliable, and its use as a reference is to be generally prohibited, especially when other more reliable sources exist.”
I also went to the GoFund me page to check out the original post and the young mother was upfront with what she was planning to do with the money.
"I nikki have been blessed with the most amazing , kind , loving and caring daughters , they are my best friends and my life , my girls are 10 and 12
They are so helpful , animal loving and rays of sunshine , I want to show them how much I appreciate and love them , I work 2 nights a week at our local hospital as this is all I am able to do ATM because of childcare and contract hours.
They watch a lot of YouTube videos where children are surprised by their parents with a holiday to disneyworld and they get tears in their eyes watching it , they love anything Disney and I know that I would never be able to get them there on my own , by the time I save up they would be to old to enjoy it 
We lost 2 very special people in our lives these past couple of years and this really would give them so much to look forward to , please help me to make my daughters dreams come true xxxx
The money so kindly donated would provide my 2 children with the trip of a lifetime !! I would surprise them with their dream holiday to Disneyworld in Florida !! Me and my 2 daughters would stay in a hotel in disneyworld for 2 weeks in summer 2018 ( will update donors by email with pictures ) and any remaining money after booking the hotel , flights and park tickets will be used for them as spending money in the gift shops and for souvenirs 
xx"
It is begging though, honest begging but still begging. I am not sure what message it sends to the children, other than a demonstration of the kindness of others. Maybe that is enough? I think that I prefer the story of the Little Matchgirl, who was offering something to earn money.
I really feel for you and your family. It’s very hard. We faced somewhat similar situations with my mother and one sister and it definitely motivated the rest of the family to organize themselves.
There was a Lifehacker article many years ago about creating a just in case document for loved ones, the one we used is from Erik Dewey
Thank you. I’ve coincidentally been putting together my own reference book for my own family for awhile, but can use all the guidance I can get.
I’m so sorry @JJT, I know of which you speak. Which also makes me mad when talking about health insurance, pre-existing conditions and “poor choices” and “preventive medical care” when MANY illnesses are not, in fact, down to diet & exercise & other habits which the media is constantly harping on. Which is not the same as saying we shouldn’t try to be healthier, but as a society we still have the very old-fashioned mindset that people are to blame for their illnesses, when the majority are not.
Although I’m sure you know this, the medical forms one might need to sign are called HIPAA releases. I have them on all my adult children. Its a little nuts but colleges won’t always call parents if their child is really sick and incapacitated. Living wills are also good but make sure the family is all on the same page, one family member who disagrees is all it takes for the medical team to be forced to ignore those.
Best of luck to you in this hard situation. Thanks for all the great things you do here, in this much happier place.
Getting back to the original subject of this thread, one thing I’ve learned from a lifetime of behind-the-scenes views into other people’s lives is that almost no one leads a charmed life, despite what it may look like from the outside. We all have a cross to bear, it’s just that some are more obvious than others.
So who knows what the real story is here.
But what I can see in this story is that there are some very generous people in this world- perhaps generous to a fault, & I think that’s a great thing.
But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right is doing, so that your almsgiving may be secret. And your Father who sees in secret will repay you.
No poor shaming? No punching down? No self-satisfied bloviating about how one achieved everything in life on one’s own stick, against the grasping of the second-handing moochers and looters? Man, that Matthew is such a drag.
I’m no Biblical scholar, but I’m pretty sure Matthew was more concerned with feeding widows and orphans than he was with financing somebody’s dream vacation to Galilee Disney. I’m also sure that no one here has suggested it’s shameful to be poor. Quite the opposite, in fact. On a related note, there’s also no shame in improving one’s lot through honest toil and living within one’s means.
He who smell’t it dealt it.
I’m not sure which disciple said it. Probably all of them. They were a bunch of dudes, after all.
How did we get from crowdfunding to the Apostles’ farting?
This forum is so much fun!
I preferred the thread yesterday that turned into a discussion about maths.
Haha, I have noticed a distinct and entertaining tendency to run amuck at a very high level of functioning around here.
I didn’t know about that park! Off to research…