The schools in Iowa (back in my day, at least - I don't know about now) were well funded without a lottery, but we still had to sell candy bars for band trips and stuff like that, the idea being we should "earn our fun". (I come from a town with a lot of poor people - the kids who worked did so because their families needed the cash).
I'm not crazy about the kids that hang out outside the supermarket either, but since I used to be in those shoes I usually help them out - but I make them work for it. I question (nicely) about their group, what they are raising it for, what they do in the group, yadda yadda yadda. I have turned into that annoying adult I used to worry about becoming when I was a kid ;-)
One place where we had an advantage over these Washington state prudes was bars: In Iowa, a minor can be in a bar as long as there is an adult there willing to claim responsibility for them (the minor still can't drink, of course). That is unthinkable here. Back in Iowa, we would hit all the bars, The American Legion, Elk's club, VFW, etc and clean out our boxes in an evening. Drunks LOVE candy, LOL...