Last week I wrote about the must have gift should be purchased locally to help out our small business owners in our area. It would be great that you consider this all year as they are willing to serve you all year.
I mentioned that the must have should not be your must have but that our many local businesses must have more sales in order to keep their doors open. Many were shut down in March and have continued to have other regulations that have restricted their business activities along with many people just not using their services due to the pandemic.
This week I would like to stress that the must have could also be for the hundreds of non-profits in our area. Donations are way down for many non-profits and some that may have seen an increase in donations/grants may also have seen high increases in what they provide.
Food banks have been overwhelmed by the need as many more families are finding they have food insecurities as they try to pay their other basic costs. You can donate various food items but the best way to help food banks is to write them a check so that they can stock what is most important to provide.
Homeless shelters are also seeing an increase in the need to provide basic shelter and again cash is king to help them.
As I mentioned above, there are hundreds of non-profits in this area some of which you may normally support by attending their activities such as sporting events, meals, auctions and other fund-raising community events.
I would like to point out that due to COVID-19 many of the local theaters that perform plays and comedy are probably struggling due to cancelling this years events due to crowd restrictions.
Since there are hundreds of non-profits it would be hard for me to list them all and I know I would inadvertently omit some. Churches for example, how in the world would I be able to gather the names and locations for every single church in Eastern Iowa? So please help any of the non-profits that you can, especially those that you once attended prior to COVID-19 and did not since.
I do want to take this space to promote one non-profit that I enjoyed their Christmas Concert last year. Keep in mind that other non-profits are also working hard to bring you online events as well.
Matt Ford with the RHCR Theatre is offering some great singers performing Christmas Carols. Helpful hint, you should watch this before your family Christmas get-together as you may find that you will want to provide this concert to them as well. You can simply use it as background music but being able to include a monitor for the video would be great. You could stream this video through your large screen television, sit back with some eggnog and grandmas baked treats for a very memorable time with your family. You could also share the link with others. www.rhcrtheatre.com
2 clicks and you should be watching!
Happy Holidays, Russ Swart; publisher
