I want to start this post with a quote from the attorney (Bill Kellum) of the family, of three-year-old Victoria Wilcher. She is the sweet little girl who was attacked by a pit-bull and badly mauled. According to the girl’s grandmother, Kelly Mullins, the girl and grandmother were reputedly asked by the manager of a Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise in Mississippi to leave because her appearance was disturbing the other patrons:
“Victoria’s family appreciates the actions of KFC in their investigation of this matter,” the lawyer said. “It is deeply disappointing that other parties have taken opportunity to attack Victoria through social and news media outlets. Victoria is an innocent child with very real physical and emotional scars.”
I would start by agreeing, in part, with what the lawyer said. Victoria has “very real physical and emotional scars.”
I cannot help but wonder who is causing those scars to grow wider and deeper.
Inconvenient truths and good souls
There is an inconvenient truth afoot. After an exhaustive investigation, KFC cannot find one shred of evidence to back up the family’s claims. They could not even find receipts that matched the orders the family claims to have ordered. I want to make it clear that I am only the messenger here. It could very well be that everything the family is claiming did in fact occur. For now, something does not smell right, and it is not the biscuits or gravy.
When the family made their claim that patrons asked Victoria to leave, they lost no time putting up a Facebook page and shouting to the world as to the injustice.
Crowd funding website GoFundMe then got involved through requests, and started “Victoria’s Victories” to raise funds for the little girl’s medical expenses. Did you know that 2,893 people donated $132,515?
I want to make something else clear at this juncture; there are 2,893 very decent people in the world that I did not know existed. I would also add that KFC, despite the fact that absolutely no wrong-doing had been uncovered, decided to donate $30,000 toward the little girls medical expenses in any case. If there is a corporate ethical “Good-Guy Award” this week, it must go to KFC.
Now let’s talk a bit.
If you or someone you know went into a restaurant and saw a little girl walk in who had a facial disfigurement would you go to the manager? Would you tell the manager that her scars bothered you? I didn’t think so.
Suppose children were with you, what might you say to them? Chances are you would ask your children to have compassion or to be very thankful or if you were so inclined to do so, to pray for the child’s health and well-being. Again, I am not saying the incident didn’t happen, I am saying that I cannot imagine any grown-up in their right mind who would have said the child offended them. I can visualize the eyes of many grown-up’s welling up with tears; I can visualize many adults with an overwhelming desire to hug the little girl.
The GoFundMe crowd funding site has offered to refund money to anyone who donated. GoFundMe CEO Brad Damphousse said in a statement:
“In lieu of the ongoing uncertainty surrounding the online fundraising effort, GoFundMe has temporarily suspended the campaign until the full truth is made clear.”
In a rather suspicious move, the family has taken down the Facebook page and they have gone silent. KFC is still investigating and they still haven’t found anything amiss.
Frankly, the lawyer’s statement bothers me. He is giving us everything except the facts. For example, which store, which manager, what time, were their witnesses…nonsense like that?
If he is massaging the truth or ignoring the truth, I am not so certain he should be interpreting the law. If he is covering the truth in order to scam a lot of good people out of their money, it is repugnant and unethical.
Finally a word to anyone who supports crowd funding causes.
Apply the same cautions to giving to a blind cause online as you would to someone knocking on your door for a donation. In no way am I saying crowd funding is a bad thing, but because it is such a new thing, we think that following that crowd has been somehow “sanctioned” by someone.
It is no more or less a place where money is collected for a cause and where vehicle that allows it to happen takes a small cut of the action.
It is difficult to know if we will ever fully learn the truth. However if there was misrepresentation all it will do is hurt the little girl more. When she grows older, how will the truth be explained to her?
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