Maybe I'm just cynical, but I admit to being astounded that Walmart finds it okay to pit food banks against one another in the competition to feed hungry people. The conglomerate that pays many of its employees too little to keep them out of poverty is challenging the food banks that help feed the people who work for the billionaire Waltons to compete for $3 million in funding.
How can this be right? It certainly doesn't feel right. What's more is we can't see on the website how many food banks will fail to "earn" some of these funds. We can only see the top 50 "winners." How do we get the food banks to boycot these efforts. This is a competition to bring eyeballs to celebrate Walmart's spin on how great the company is to be giving $3 million to 50 food banks. Give me a break!! First their structurally-created employment poverty gives rise to the demands on the food banks, then they structure giving by driving "eyeballs" to the website. This is somehow quite dispicable. Over the fold, my umbrage goes.
Not too much more to say, except I have direct experience with the food distribution network. Pantries in one area try very hard not to fight over hungry neighbors coordinating to share all sites for which families are eligible so moms, dads and children stay fed for the entire month (many pantries limit visits to once or twice per month), yet Walmart has no problems pitting the food banks that supply the direct service pantries in a fight for available food. A fight that allows the voraciously greedy company to drive up the number of hits on its website.
Why can't we get nonprofits to stop participating in funding initiatives driven by those that increase the demand for their services and whose gifts have little to do with the love of humankind (definition of philanthopy) and more to do with self-aggrandizement of the corporate behemouth. I wonder what the thousands of "eyeballs" that hit to vote once per day are worth in advertising dollars? My guess is more than the $3 million being awarded!
It's perverse and is a vivid of example of nonprofits supporting corporate bad practices in the way that working class Americans vote against their own self-interests. Do we really deserve to have the hard-working staff members of our food banks out shilling for Walmart? There is something so fundamentally perverse about this situation.
Wish this could go viral and give Walmart such a public relations nightmare that the company would have to give each and every food bank that is participating a $50,000 gift just to get the egg off of its Jabaa the Hutt-like face!