Should Charity Begin in a Supermarket?

Grocery shopping is not a particularly happy time for me.

I go on Saturdays, late morning-early afternoon, when everybody else does. The checkout lines are long, the vegetables are usually picked over and the sesame bagels are always gone.

And I have to ram a few shopping carts before I can pull my car into a space.

So I wasn’t in the best of moods the other Saturday in the dairy section, poised in front of the orange juice and variations thereof.

The good news was that the half-and-half I’d just managed to secure did not expire two days hence. (I have mixed feelings about expiration dates. I might be happier if I didn’t know.)

Then she appeared, looking unusually chipper, bright, with an “excuse me” smile. She was young, she had been assigned this job. She asked me if I would give.

I said what.

Well, you see, this very supermarket (her employer) was donating and she wanted to know would I pitch in too. It was a Good Cause. To fight a disease. They would ring up my contribution at the register up front.

I said that I didn’t think so, less snappishly than I might have given the dairy-section chill that was washing over me just then. Still, this young employee looked at me as if I’d said, “No thanks, I’m in favor of this illness myself. Long may it live.”

And I felt, um, angry.

I thought, what nerve, what bad corporate PR. I thought things were really getting out of hand. I felt pestered. I felt like I now understood those cranks who put a “No Solicitors” sign outside their door.

I wanted to be left alone, to the peaceful drudgery of schlepping up and down the supermarket aisles. I wanted some charity clemency. Please.

And (really) I’m a nice person deep down.

But now I stew. I’ve gotten so I distrust the well-oiled charity machines, the never-ending pitch. I’ve read of too many scams. (No, they’re not all like that, of course.) I know from outrageous percentages going toward “administrative costs.” Nobody likes to think of lobbing their money into a black hole.

If you let it all sink in, there’s a danger of becoming Ebenezer Scrooge.

Which I’m not. Just yet.

I do understand that the charity business can be tough, especially since this recession started putting out roots. And nobody likes to stick a hand out all the time. It’ll get slapped or just hang there limp-wristed for lack of use.

Certainly, the more successful fund-raisers have the technique down. You ask, but you make the donor feel privileged to give. People like to help people. It makes us feel good, as if our efforts matter. It expands our world.

Witness the outpouring of money, job offers, even a place to live, for a homeless family in Buena Park that turned in a tourist’s wallet stuffed with nearly $2,400 in cash.

Show people a way to help, a genuine good cause with a clear route from Needed to Needy and a connection will be made. I know. I’ve been astounded by the generosity of people who have been moved to help those I’ve written about here.

It’s the slickness of professional charities, the legion of middlemen who might interfere, that scares many people off.

It’s also a great excuse not to care.

In other words, we’re talking about fine lines, about damned if you do and damned if you don’t. Professional charities help thousands of people everyday. They are often the lifeline to fight disease.

But, then again, we’ve all heard of compassion fatigue. Maybe that’s why I was so annoyed at being hit up while I shopped.

The same weekend that the supermarket employee failed to tack on a charitable contribution to my grocery bill, my daughter and her Brownie friends were stationed outside another store hoping to sell Girl Scout cookies for yet another good cause: themselves.

The girls had been instructed to wear their uniforms (cuteness counts), to ask but not beg and never demand, and to thank people even if they didn’t part with any cash. Written instructions to parents explained that we didn’t want to harass anybody to further the Girl Scout cause.

I’m here to report that the plan was followed to the letter, at least while my daughter, another Brownie, two other mothers, my husband, our younger daughter and I staked out the exit to the supermarket.

And . . . not a single box of cookies was sold during our shift.

Even though (honest) these cookies freeze very well.