What I Learned From My No-Spend Month
3 weeks ago
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Floods
By now everyone everywhere must know about the floods in Queensland. This story brought me undone.
We're lucky, the people we know are safe. I haven't been online for yonks and I'm wondering if the crafting community is getting mobilised for flood relief the way it did for the Victorian bushfires in 2009? Otherwise, if you're local here are some ways to help; for the others, the Salvoes say donating money is the best thing to do at present.
I remember helping to sort goods donated for bushfire victims and although many things were superb and most obviously very well-meant there were too many decrepit strollers smelling of old wee, tattered lamps, obviously incomplete toy sets and so on - it looked suspiciously as if people had taken the chance to upgrade and told themselves they were being good by donating the junk they were replacing. It was still junk. There was a small mountain of stuff that simply could not be given to anyone, let alone those who had been through the bushfires. Mind you, there were many toys we volunteers thought were good but were directed to reject. The strangest thing I remember seeing was a huge crate of sweet potatoes. As we finished, pallets were made up and shrinkwrapped to send out: a load of portacots; a load of new sleeping bags donated by the manufacturer; a load of high chairs in various conditions. One day, a harried and upset woman came through to pick out particular things for a family that had been burnt out. She was a relief co-ordinator and was trying to assemble a household's worth of essentials, knowing that many of the things - a wardrobe for instance - would not be there. I don't know how much of her list she was able to find.
Anyway. Crafter I'm not, but if anything's being organised let me know.
We're lucky, the people we know are safe. I haven't been online for yonks and I'm wondering if the crafting community is getting mobilised for flood relief the way it did for the Victorian bushfires in 2009? Otherwise, if you're local here are some ways to help; for the others, the Salvoes say donating money is the best thing to do at present.
I remember helping to sort goods donated for bushfire victims and although many things were superb and most obviously very well-meant there were too many decrepit strollers smelling of old wee, tattered lamps, obviously incomplete toy sets and so on - it looked suspiciously as if people had taken the chance to upgrade and told themselves they were being good by donating the junk they were replacing. It was still junk. There was a small mountain of stuff that simply could not be given to anyone, let alone those who had been through the bushfires. Mind you, there were many toys we volunteers thought were good but were directed to reject. The strangest thing I remember seeing was a huge crate of sweet potatoes. As we finished, pallets were made up and shrinkwrapped to send out: a load of portacots; a load of new sleeping bags donated by the manufacturer; a load of high chairs in various conditions. One day, a harried and upset woman came through to pick out particular things for a family that had been burnt out. She was a relief co-ordinator and was trying to assemble a household's worth of essentials, knowing that many of the things - a wardrobe for instance - would not be there. I don't know how much of her list she was able to find.
Anyway. Crafter I'm not, but if anything's being organised let me know.
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