Inter-charity rivalry

Every so often we get a flyer in the mail from Purple Heart that lets us know when they’ll be in our neighborhood picking up donations.  We try to always have something, but not as hard as we used to.  They used to call ahead to see if we had anything to donate, and if we did, they’d come to the neighborhood.  I always said yes and then made sure I had something ready that morning.  I certainly don’t want to have them come all the way to our house only to find we forgot.  That would suck.  Now that they’re mailing us a flyer that says they’re coming no  matter what, we’re not as diligent.   But still, we do try.  Anyway, AmVets still calls ahead, and they called us the day before we got a Purple Heart flyer, so I figured that this month, our donation would go to AmVets instead (and we didn’t have enough to get rid of this time to give to both).  Both places have the same process: put your stuff in a bag or a box or whatever and LABEL it very CLEARLY with LARGE letters.  It has to say AMVETS (or PURPLE HEART) or they won’t pick it up.  You can leave it on the curb or on the front porch – anywhere that’s clearly visible from the street.  I always leave mine on the edge of the front porch with LABEL facing the STREET.  (Got a little carried away there.)  Which is what I did the other morning.  I was working from home that day, and I made sure that my big bag of clothes was out on the front porch by 8am with AMVETS written across it on two sides in really big letters.  Around lunchtime, the dogs started barking, and when I looked out the front window, I saw a guy walking back to his big truck (like a small moving van, white sides) with the bag.  Pickup completed.  EXCEPT.  A couple of hours later, the dogs started to go nuts again.  I went to the door this time and saw a guy walking back to HIS big white truck.  There was a “sorry we missed you” AmVets receipt in the door, and I realized what had happened.  I ran back outside to catch the guy and apologize.  He was really nice about it, but STILL.  Purple Heart stole my donation!  And he came all the way out here, and I didn’t have anything else ready to give away.  I’m sorry, AmVets.  I’ll have twice as much next time.

Wouldn’t it be great if someone at Purple Heart noticed the AmVets label on the bag and donated it to them anyway?  I wonder if they do that.

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