Wealthy mum: Crowdfund my boy’s birthday with £15 each
ONLINE ‘crowdfunding’ pages are usually set up to help fundraisers take donations for worthy causes such as a charities.
But a mother has provoked outrage by creating one to raise money to buy a ‘really nice’ birthday present for her privately educated son.
Paramita Sarkar, 39, said Adi, nine, gets board games and boxes of Lego every year that never get played with and end up ‘cluttering’ their home.
So this year, before his tenth birthday, the accountant has set up a Just Giving page online and is suggesting that the parents of those invited to his party contribute around £15 each.
If the parents of all 20 children agree, Adi will have £300 to buy ‘something useful that would be treasured’.
Mrs Sarkar and her husband Indranil, 39, from the affluent suburb of Bramhall in Stockport, Cheshire, are taking their only child to Disney World in Florida next week for his birthday.
She said: ‘There is no party without presents but afterwards we are left with boxes of Lego every year which stop getting played with.
‘They get piled up in boxes and we run out of space to store all the board games – sometimes duplicate ones. So I have set up this Just Giving page where I would request mums to contribute – not donate – instead of buying presents.
‘I can then buy something that my boy would actually appreciate and treasure over a long period of time.’
She added: ‘If everybody contributed, say, £15 a time, there’ll be 20 people and Adi can actually buy something really nice. This is simply to reduce the clutter and buy something really useful.’
Mrs Sarkar, whose family moved to Britain from India in 2005, said she was still trying to gauge the reaction to her idea and hoped she would not be ‘judged’ .
But the move provoked a furious response online. Margot Cornish wrote: ‘What a brass neck! If the money was going to a children’s charity it would be more palatable.’
Andy Greaves said: ‘ Greedy b******s’, while Ebrahim Bathia added: ‘Modern day begging! You can afford to take your kid Florida but beg for a gift!’
Another internet user said: ‘People are using food banks and this family are moaning about their spoilt child having too many toys. “Don’t want to be judged...” Well sorry, judgment coming. You’re both an absolute disgrace.’
However, others were more forgiving, with one writing: ‘They’re asking for something alternative so that the money they’d spend on unused gifts isn’t wasted.
‘Seems once kids get to about nine you’re expected to arrive at the party with money in a card instead of a gift anyway, so no problem.’
Mrs Sarkar said she had told Adi, a Year 5 pupil at the £9,000-a-year Cheadle Hulme School in Stockport, why he will not be getting any presents at his party.
She added: ‘He is cool with the idea and also keeps asking how much collections have been made.’
Last night £90 had been donated by four people on the Just Giving website, which takes a proportion of donations as a fee.
‘An absolute disgrace’