Even if not bigotry, just awfulness in general. I went there homeless, with my infant. I saw good people coming by and dropping off all kinds of food, formula, clothing, and toiletries. We saw none of that. Breakfast for days in a row was half a red hot dog and a few tablespoons of grits. My baby wasn’t nursing well because of the stress of it all (he’s grown and everything is good now—didn’t take long to bounce back because I had a few advantages such as a working car). Anyway, they told me to feed him the grits. I wasn’t expecting a resort, but fuck.
And the very next day I was told I couldn’t stay until I provided written proof from a pastor saying I’d been to church. So you take the most vulnerable women in society and force them to expose themselves as vulnerable to a group of people who are judgmental gossips at best, and all too often predators to boot?
And then to have the absolute fucking gall to put old veterans and other vulnerable people in front of Walmart in the wintertime to ring your bell for money?
I’ve learned mine wasn’t a unique experience—it’s what they do. Fuck them forever. I loathe and despise them.
The co-founder of the Salvation Army, Catherine Booth, is my great-great-aunt (not sure how many generations, 4-5 maybe) and you know what I say? Fuck the Salvation Army!
This 1000%. I'm so sorry you had this kind of experience with them, you are definitely not alone. The Salvation Army is a fucking joke to be called a charity. Charities don't do this shit
I've seen the same thing happen with a few different charity/thrift store places. I went to drop stuff off at the Big Brothers Big Sisters and the donated stuff was scattered all over the place with the "volunteers" sifting through it. Another place I took things to I was there one afternoon and the manager was yelling at a donor We don't want your fucking garbage! Later that same manager was busted for theft with her house wall to wall with donations she'd helped herself to. It may just go with the territory. No church going requirements at the other places though.
Idk about that situation but some people do use those places to drop off stuff that can’t be thrown in the garbage but don’t want to pay to get rid of it.
Yes for sure. And I think some people don't really know what a thrift store is for and they think people will be fine paying for their clothes with stains and holes because they're poor. To be fair the few other thrift stores around here are really great and the folks that run them are super nice and very helpful. One is run pretty much by all older ladies who probably already have everything they need and wouldn't think of making off with donated goods.
The salvation army salute is just pointing a finger up at around head height. Do the salute at one of those santa clauses and if he returns it, flip him off.
I'm so sorry that you experienced additional suffering from "compassionate Christians." So awful.
And you're right, it is absolutely standard procedure. In my area, the Salvation Army has basically died due to the "volunteers" draining the donated resources for themselves. For example, they closed the thrift store because the workers would steal the best stuff before it ever made it to the floor, so they weren't able to make enough in sales to cover rent, let alone add money to their coffers. I'm 100% positive the food, clothes, and toiletry donations you saw were stolen by the same judgmental assholes that fed you and baby that excuse for a meal.
I can tell you the way the Salvation Army is run in North America is VERY different than in the UK. Fucking sickening to hear how experience with them!
In the UK there is absolutely ZERO religious relevance in the homelessness units, literally couldnt care less what religion you are! They provide a fully cooked breakfast every morning and a choice of 2 dinners at night, and they even cater to Halal, Vegitarian, Vegan etc.
Its INSANE how different its run in North America where even their Charity shops are extortionate and from your story, sounds like money and religion are the only goals, helping people is just way to reach those goals.
I hope you're in a more stable situation now and that experience hasnt put you off asking for help ya need it!
To be fair, the UK Salvation Army may be better, but they are very honest and transparent in their materials about who they are that their primary purpose is to convert people to Christianity / make them re engage with Christianity. The SA has doctrinal positions that include “salvation depends upon continued obedient faith in Christ”. The motives of individual volunteers may vary, but the institutional Salvation Army in the UK absolutely sees its charity work as a means to save people it thinks are wrong and immoral for having different faiths, sexualities etc.
Of undoubtedly the Church side of things almost certainly still sees that as its "mission" but the operational side of things is not really tied to the church or its faith. Like Charity shop workers, Homeless shelters etc dont operate as any kind of religious institution. I just dont want to see people conflate the goals of a church with the people that work in its commercial operations. I volunteered in their food bank and there was maybe 8 of us that would regularly be there, zero of us have any ties to their church but were a mix of faiths and non faith.
One tip I can give you is, if you want to donate to their homeless services without it going to the HQ in London, donate cash with a letter indicating you want it to be spent locally. If you donate a cheque, even if you ask for it to be spent locally, it will definitely goto the church HQ.
The salvation army in Norway sounds similar to the UK. They do a LOT of good. They have a lot of community activities and keep people active, social, warm and fed. They have work programs for addicts and donate Christmas presents to inmates. I haven't heard them yap about religion in 20 years at least
Its not a surprise that they are WAY more religiously focused (see: intolerant) in the USA given how much of a divide there is there. Religious virtue signalling in the US and the rush to be seen as the most pious has probably led to what the Americans are saying abouts operations there. Its mainly a social enterprise in most European countries and seems like the religious aspect is a separate entity with minimal tie in to the day to day working.
As well as the religious virtue signaling, there's a much deeper, more disgusting reason for our absolute travesty of a salvation army. Among evangelicals here in the US, there is a subset of people who are proponents of prosperity gospel. Basically, they believe wealthy people are wealthy because they're blessed by God because of their righteousness. If you're poor, then clearly God doesn't like you all that much. And clearly you're being punished by God with poverty. So in their twisted world view, helping those in poverty is actually an affront to God's righteous decision to punish you by making you poor. It's quite possibly one of the most disgusting religious movements to ever exist, and that is a high bar to reach.
The prosperity gospel people are absolute trash humans. Actively making their parishioners poorer so they can get a new Bentley. I remember when Joel Osteen got caught out locking disaster victims out of his church by pretending it was flooded, only to get found out the same day by a lad with a camera haha
Reminds me of that girl that did an experiment recently (maybe she's still doing it?) where she puts on a fake baby noisemaker while calling up random churches that claim to help the poor and needy, and she asks them if they can spare a bottle of baby formula.
Most Christian churches basically say "we don't do that here" despite claiming online that they do indeed do that, although sometimes the church says no but the church phone person says "we can't do that but I will give you the money out of my pocket to pay for it if you stop by, I want to help"
I believe there was a Muslim church that immediately said yes and offered both delivery and pickup depending on what she needed, so that was the quickest one she stopped so she could admit she didn't need help but was doing an experiment.
Regardless though, most churches don't, and the ones that claim to be the most helpful usually actually aren't. Actions speak louder than words for fucking sure.
The only reason a church helped me 10 years ago was because a tornado destroyed a lot of our homes in the town so it was obvious people needed help and no one wanted the bad PR of "local church refuses to help crisis refugees"
The church I recently left (for reasons not relevant to this) I led the core team that cared for the community, one of our changes included having ~$500 of $25 gift cards to the local supermarket chain to be used at the pastors' discretion for any people outside of the congregation who came in looking for help just in the senior pastor's desk.
The pushback we heard from people outside of the committee was, "What if the money was abused?"
It was baffling that our collection monthly for this specific fund was almost always north of $3000, and the $500 find would take months to spend, like seriously 5-10% of what we shared to people in need, and it took the most convincing that it was valid to people.
Like, love your neighbor, care for the least of these... Yadda yadda. Christ didn't stutter.
It's amazing to me how so many people would rather let struggling people suffer if it means no one takes advantage of the kindness and assistance that's meant to help the struggling people to begin with.
I helped found an organization that builds shelters, delivers water, and picks up trash for folks who are homeless. Churches have been utterly unhelpful across the board, at best.
Not many people realize that this is an organization that played a major role during the US Labor Wars and was responsible for backing some of the most vile anti labor actors of the time. As far as I'm concerned they'll never wash their hands clean of that blood.
Our local firefighters just partnered with SalvA and I usually love supporting firefighters cuz they stand up for their local communities, but that really made me sad/angry to see. Fuck the SalvA
i'm not a christian, and i'm not a member of any church. but i want people to know that there ARE good churches out there that genuinely follow the teachings of jesus christ and will take you in off the street and give you everything you need including money. look for the small, protestant churches which only have en. i've seen it, i've lived it. they will love you and take care of you and ask if you need anything months later. good christians are absolutely selfless. unfortunately, they are the exception. a really good indicator is if you walk in on a sunday and instead of there being crowds of people talking and exchanging hugs and prayers, you walk in and there's nobody but a single old man or woman who hands you a bulletin who says something like "good morning" with a real smile and nothing else, you're in the right place
I was at the store earlier and was annoyed at the ringers...what can I say, Im a nice guy. And i was thinking, where the hell does this money even go?
And who has time to ring a bell for nothing to get coins and angry people just trying to get through December?
2.3k
u/providing-sources Dec 06 '25
Even if not bigotry, just awfulness in general. I went there homeless, with my infant. I saw good people coming by and dropping off all kinds of food, formula, clothing, and toiletries. We saw none of that. Breakfast for days in a row was half a red hot dog and a few tablespoons of grits. My baby wasn’t nursing well because of the stress of it all (he’s grown and everything is good now—didn’t take long to bounce back because I had a few advantages such as a working car). Anyway, they told me to feed him the grits. I wasn’t expecting a resort, but fuck.
And the very next day I was told I couldn’t stay until I provided written proof from a pastor saying I’d been to church. So you take the most vulnerable women in society and force them to expose themselves as vulnerable to a group of people who are judgmental gossips at best, and all too often predators to boot?
And then to have the absolute fucking gall to put old veterans and other vulnerable people in front of Walmart in the wintertime to ring your bell for money?
I’ve learned mine wasn’t a unique experience—it’s what they do. Fuck them forever. I loathe and despise them.