By Greg Goulder ’13
The Roundup

With the fall Turkey Drive coming soon, students know that they will be asked for their donations during sixth period in the coming weeks.

During last year’s Turkey Drive, I often found myself wondering if Brophy was being unreasonable in its tactics of asking for my money.

In my sixth period class, a student would carry around a large envelope to collect charity money from his classmates.

To me, this seemed like peer pressure was being used to collect money.

We should not feel embarrassed for donating less money to a charity than the student to our right or left.

It is great that Brophy students are contributing to charity, but I do not think that some ways of collecting money should be allowed.

Some say that this is not a problem, because we are not required to give any money at all.

This is true, but no student can escape the guilt of telling a classmate or friend that they cannot donate any money.

I donated a large sum of money last year for the Turkey Drive, but even I felt guilty on the other days that I forgot my wallet.

I also heard of teachers giving students JUG and commuting the punishment as long as a donation was given to the Turkey Drive.

This has been prohibited in recent times, but there are still rumblings about incentives for big bucks.

I propose that Turkey Drive donations, and all other drives for that matter, be done in a more anonymous manner in order to avoid the inherent guilt that comes with having no money to donate on a certain day.

An anonymous method of collecting money would also avoid the competition that comes from classes trying to donate more money.

This is Brophy, we do not need contests or peer pressure in order to collect money.

We should be driven to give money purely by our own good intentions.