The dangers of fingerprinting children

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

ok, this is a little bit of a rant, and a little bit of a pity party.

Now. I'm sick. I have pinkeye; my nose is clogged to the point where crap is comin' outta my eyes and ears, I have a sinus headache, a fever, terrible dizziness, my temples are killing me, and I'm sneezing almost every ten seconds. This sucks. but you know what? It means that I've done my job.

I got this from some random kid yesterday while up in Placerville, fingerprinting children for their parent's records. And now, in case something happens to said child; God forbid, his parents will have his fingerpints and dental records to help in the search to get him back. I'm sick right now because I helped someone. It may hopefully never be needed, but in our world today, you can never ever be sure.

It always happens to someone else until it happens to you.



But that's not why I'm writing this.

I'm writing this because I'm slowly becoming disgusted with the attitudes some people have towards helping others.

Now. My job is hard to explain. I'm a distributer at this point in time. I work for a maketing company training to be a manager, but until then, I work in the field on campaigns. My current one is for the Child Protection Education of America. This non-profit organization provides visual aides such as billboards on the side of highways. They don't do the amber alert; that's done by the government. My job right now is simple. I don't really like the term solicitor, but that's what I am right now. I stand out in front of K-Mart and try to sell gifts to people in order to help raise money for the CPEA.

And it's some peoples' excuses that I hate with my entire soul.

"Hey, c'mon over here, see what you can do to help find missing children!"

"Oh no, I don't have kids."

or

"I don't have time."

or

"Not interested."

or

"Missing kids? Would you take mine?"

There's more. A lot more. But you know what? I don't want to get into peoples' excuses right now; I think you all get the drift. Don't get me wrong. I love my job; it's the things people say that drive me nuts inside.

On the flipside however, I have no problem with a person who comes over to the table, listens to what I have to say, but still doesn't buy anything. And you know what? 10 times outta 10 it's because of lack of funds. But I don't care. The fact that this person listened to me means all the world to me right now, cause now I've been able to tell them about the organization, what they do, and how they help. And not only that, but if they have kids, then I've already done them a service by fingerprinting their child/children for them. And now I'm sick because I've done my job. I'm happy (though you wouldn't know it to look at me).

Did you know that 1 in 6 kids are found because of visual aides? Or that 750,000 kids were reported missing last year? And that that number is now down to 700,000? That's 50,000 kids sleeping in their beds safe once more.

You do now.

And that's more than the man/woman who had no time to listento what is happening to their future generation knows.


So that's all now. I'm done venting.

[Taylor Millard]

Get better s'Il! :)

*goes and gets some Advil and tissues.*

[Nupraptor]

It's truly an admirable thing that someone would devote their time and energy helping others, especially in an age where we're all brought up to look the other way.

I didn't know that the number of missing children was quite so high. And, although I can't proclaim the same selflessness, I do laud your efforts, s'Il. Take care, and feel better. :)

[Kirrto McKavity]

Well done s'Il!

even if you feel icky, you can feel good for being waaay more selfles than me.

even if my commision is a few pennies below £10 i start cursing all customers everywhere

[Ishan Shade]

Yes, I agree with the others.....

The world needs more people like you my friend. Plain and simple. :)

[Sanis Prent]

(warms up a spaghettio can for s'Il) :)

[Admiral Lebron]

Yay s'Il for helping people! I was fingerprinted by the sheriff when I was a child.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

*hugs for s'Il*

Shame on all the people who see selflessness and say "Oh, thats fine for you but its not me."

[Tyreal Dalarsco]

It feels good to help people. I do volunteer work. FOr instance, I have served iner city people dinners in the basement of my church when we hold Operation Friendship dinners. Last time we did one, me and my friend Tory were doing most of the work. But it made us feel good. Or, that may have been the sugar cubes we lifted off the tea trolly on the way out to mini-golf.

[Nirvana]

Well, my only problem with seeing someone on the street for a charity or a non-profit organization is that I'm not really sure what my money will be used for, and if everything is credible. And usually, when I do run into someone that's doing that, I am on my way somewhere (they usually set up in busy places), so I seriously don't have the time to interrogate them so as to know that my money will really be used for some good.

That said, I have spent many hours volunteering for organizations such as the Red Cross. And even I was disgusted to see how inefficiently the funds were distributed.

So in my opinion, what those people on the street should do is simply hand out information along with an envelope, so that passerbys can go home, read the information, check up on the organization online and verify everything, and then mail in any contribution.

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

my pitch is short; 10 seconds at the longest,

here's the link to the CPEA's site. I assure you, this is a legit organization.


http://www.find-missing-children.org/



and I'm feelin' a little better today ^_^ thanks all :)

[Lord Gue]

Sorry I wasnt around to say it, and still wont be, and its prolly over...

FEEL BETTER!

[Jeseth Cloak]

There's only one reason I don't contribute to those organizations: fairness. If I contribute to one organization, then why not to another? Who's to say that helping to find missing children is a worthier cause than saving the lives of police officers, rescuing endangered habitats, or helping feed the homeless?

What's more important... keeping the air breathable, or keeping the water drinkable? Teaching children how to read, or teaching adults how to walk again after they've had strokes? You can't put priorities on those things, honestly. I don't contribute because if I give to one organization then I'm obligated to give money to them all... and I'm simply not that rich - In fact, I'm fairly broke 99.9% of the time. :(

That's only my opinion though...

[Kirrto McKavity]

i just pick one good charity at the start of the year, and give to that one for that year. the next year, i pick someone else

it seems to work, but i feel like a right heel throwing the charity letters off all the other charities in the bin.
:(

i probably dont do much good either, i only give a couple of quid on top of what my family do.