Thursday I went to a Christmas party for the kids in the trailer park where my friends and I have been tutoring the past year – Holt 1.2.1. Over the course of the past year, we thrown many parties however as this was a Christmas themed party, it came with gift giving. A very well meaning corporate man organized a gift drive for the twenty or so kids in our program and wanted to be there when the gifts were given to not only see the expressions on their faces but also to snap a few pictures to presumably post on the bulletin board in the break room back at the office.
I shouldn’t stereotype this man when I think he might be the exception to those I’ve seen before who roll out the roster of good deeds for, in this case, to use a term I absolutely despise, underprivileged kids during the holiday season but the rest of the year forget about them. Was the real point of this man’s endeavor to build up these kids and their families or to put an X in his “good deed” box for 2008? And I know people have to start somewhere, but these types of projects smack of condescension and I fear might do more harm than good.
In this case, I couldn’t help but wonder as the children, who live in severe poverty, went to their humble homes with the gifts in tow what their parents thought of this whole thing. On one hand, the few parents I talked with did seem grateful for their children to receive nice things. On the other hand, did these gifts serve as a reminder of their lack of being able to provide for their kids? When the time comes for these working moms and dads do give their children the Christmas gifts they themselves struggled to buy, will these items be overshadowed by the ones we distributed so glibly Thursday?
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