Giving Tuesday

While many focus on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, this year I decided to not "go-with-the-retail-masses" and instead focus on Giving Tuesday. Yes, it's a thing - a retailer who isn't focusing on the buy-buy-buy season for once! Giving Tuesday is the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, and is a great time to give a monetary donation to an organization you value, not only because it's an important thing to do but also because your donation usually goes further as sponsoring corporations or endowments will double donations made on Giving Thursday.

This year, I gave to two organizations that I value. The League for the Blind and Disabled and Fort Wayne Boys and Girls Club. Both organizations are important to me for personal reasons.

Donating to a non-profit doesn't have to be difficult or even costly. I donated what I would typically spend on a few months of coffee. But you could donate two coffees worth. As knitters, we know that every small stitch adds up in the end to something larger, and this is the same for the small steps we take to help others. 

Donating to the League this year was particularly quick and easy, more so than ever, thanks to technology. Here's what I did, I texted the term TeamGarth (a person who works at the League and is collecting "team" donations) to the phone number 44321 and I was immediately texted back a link to follow to donate. I did so, and then chose ApplePay (you could use a card) and was DONE. Less than a minute - like 40 seconds. Really, it's easy. Just do it.

I hope you find the time and a bit of $ to give today. And I hope you feel great about it, because you deserve to feel good about helping others. I often pause and think "Is it enough? Will this just not even make an impact? Should I wait until I can do something more?" But if everyone who thought that way just went ahead and did a bit to help others, together we make an impact. 

Comments

[Jan]

❤️

[Donna]

That’s one thing that Facebook does that’s really good IMHO. I have an ongoing monthly donation to the Greater Chicago Food Depository. It comes right out of my checking account every month. I don’t FEEL the contribution. But a lot of my friends have charitable donation campaigns for their birthdays & I try to give at least something to each of those. And those do feel good.

[Judy]

Thank you Allison for your gift to the Boys and Girls Club of Fort Wayne, a great organization.
Next year, Joe will be the president of the Volusia-Flagler Boys and Girls Club, with eight sites in our area. He is always very hands on with his volunteer commitments, as he already is with the club, so it will be quite a year!

PS Love, love the Winter sock set that arrived last week!

[Alison]

We gave to the local food bank and LGBTQ association as well as some wildlife organizations. It does feel good!

[Diane]

My sister and I are trying to downsize our homes in anticipation of moving into something smaller in-the-not-too-distant future and along with our niece, we have decided to forgo gifts for each other and instead donate what we would have spent on each other for Christmas as an additional gift to each of our favorite charities in our hometowns. Right now two of us have or will be donating to our local branch of Feeding America and the third is still undecided. It was a great idea as there are so many in need and the 3 of us and our households are blessed “not to need” right now, even with tight budgets.