Willingness to help should know no bounds. Those who are in need should be helped. Many citizens in the Dachau district have shown in the past few weeks how willing they are to help. Accommodation was created, clothes were donated, necessities for the refugees were bought, and privately organized aid convoys set off. And money was generously donated. There were and are enough opportunities to be helpful. The heretical question arises: are there perhaps too many of them?
With two children in elementary school, for example, you can’t help but do good at the moment. First it was the Hort that took part in a Chaoscityriders campaign with donations in kind for the Ukraine. So we took the children to the pharmacy and drugstore and worked through the list provided. Then the children held a self-made house with a money slot under their noses – a donation initiated during religious education class. In the last email to parents, there was an appeal not to give the child a snack on Monday, but instead the money that the snack would have cost. This is collected and donated – the children receive a slice of dry bread from the parents’ association. Also a nice idea, especially during Lent. But as I said – it’s just one idea out of many.
Don’t get me wrong: helpfulness is not the problem
In the meantime, each child should please bring two euros with them, because they would like to take part in some spring run. As a child you just started running, but times are changing. And so that the Easter holidays don’t get boring at all, you should pack shoeboxes as a welcome gift for Ukrainian children. But please only what is on the list sent. We already have experience in this, because the “Christmas in a shoebox” campaign is of course also served regularly.
Don’t get me wrong: helpfulness is not the problem. People like to give and have always done so. Also in the past few weeks. But it’s just getting a bit much. As the saying goes: You can’t dance at all weddings. But that’s exactly what’s happening. How to explain that to your children, who are constantly holding out their hands on behalf of teachers and educators? No idea. After all, they shouldn’t be outsiders just because their mom thinks they don’t have to give anything anymore. Or to be able to. Or to want. Very difficult topic. What does Florian Hartmann, the mayor think? In a press release from the city, he was quoted as saying: “The willingness in Germany to help people who have fled Ukraine is huge, but there is a risk that individual offers of help, no matter how well-meant they may be, do not reflect reality.”