Chicago’s non-profits have stepped up amid the city’s headline-grabbing unrest, upheavals and financial uncertainties to take on poverty, women’s rights, animal rescue and young people’s needs in awe-inspiring ways.
The non-profits’ savvy runs the gamut, whether it’s a church’s grassroots initiative, a global business network’s online outreach, or a longtime children’s, refugee, or violence and abandonment victims’ special-needs responses.
The non-profits are rising above sweeping federal funding cuts, constant business unpredictability and a rising Artificial Intelligence-centered jobless rate. Their incessant challenges make
this year’s “Giving Tuesday” (#GivingTuesday and @GivingTuesday)
— occurring Dec. 2 (the Tuesday after Thanksgiving) — the perfect time to donate to causes that help people and their four-legged friends in the “real” world, right here in your backyard.
They include:
· Food banks and food pantries that serve an increasingly essential need for families still recovering from the federal shutdown’s cutoff of SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) benefits, and who face changes in eligibility and other upcoming SNAP uncertainties.
· Carter Temple CME Church in the Grand Crossing neighborhood runs programs that give teens life-changing experiences ranging from economics seminars to discovering a new life’s goal through its non-profit arm. As the Rev. Joseph Gordon, who navigates high-pressure funding pullouts with dexterity, says, “Faith over fatigue.”
· Family-focused non-profits that provide everything from essential goods such as diapers and school supplies, to those offering shelter, counseling and healthcare services.
· Medical-focused foundations that seek donations for research to prevent enduring issues such as blindness, congenital heart defects and childhood intellectual and developmental disabilities. The Agnes Marshall Walker Foundation (AMWF), on the other hand, seeks to promote neuroscience nursing and patient-care excellence by helping people become educated, certified and skilled in that specialty.
· Financial security non-profits that aim to help people become money-savvy, retirement ready and informed and up-to-date about home ownership. And those focused on teaching young people about math, saving, investing and becoming financially independent.
· Community safety and organizing non-profits that show people how to advocate for their neighborhoods, and that work to prevent violence, homelessness, drunken driving and relapsing into crime.
· Animal rights non-profits range from no-kill shelters that help find foster and permanent homes for animals in desperate need, to those that oppose using animals in medical research.
This holiday season offers a perfect opportunity to practice a few of the fundamentals of finding happiness: Be grateful, take responsibility, be active in community, and give to others.