Here are ways to help kids in need this Giving Tuesday

By Ryan Bergeron, CNN

(CNN) — Black Friday kicked off the holiday shopping season, and now Giving Tuesday is set to spark the season of generosity as 2023 approaches peak giving time.

Since 2012, millions of people have celebrated Giving Tuesday (the Tuesday after Thanksgiving) by volunteering, doing good and donating to causes around the world. According to GivingTuesday.org, 37 million people participated in some form last year, donating $3.1 billion to charities.

Asha Curran, CEO of GivingTuesday, wrote that her organization “now has official movements in nearly 100 countries.”

“That’s because generosity is one of our most basic human instincts and a shared, uniting value that transcends borders, backgrounds, and differences.”

This year, GivingTuesday is partnering with the National Center for Family Philanthropy and the Phillips Foundation to provide free educational resources that cultivate generosity in kids. “Give as We Grow” offers games, videos and activities, inspiring kids to make positive impacts in their communities.

It’s important to teach the power of generosity at an early age because there is a lot of people who are in need, especially children.

A USDA study showed that 12% of children in the US faced poverty in 2022, and some 17 million households struggled to acquire enough food to feed themselves at some point. In honor of Giving Tuesday, here are some non-profits supporting kids and families with children.

Providing essentials

Millions of kids around the country lack essentials such as food, housing, clothing and health care.

Children’s Health Fund was founded by singer-songwriter Paul Simon and the husband/wife team of Irwin and Karen Redlener after they visited a homeless shelter in New York City and witnessed “the dire conditions under which children were living.” The Children’s Health Fund has a fleet of mobile medical units “that bring care directly to the places that children live, learn, and play so that the care they need is easy to access.” The program provides primary care, dental care and mental health care “to children across the country who live in communities that lack healthcare access.”

No Kid Hungry is a national campaign fighting to end child hunger. It’s run by the Share Our Strength organization (Warner Brothers Discovery, CNN’s parent company, is a partner in the campaign) and works to ensure kids have access to three meals a day by supporting programs that provide tax credits to low-income families and school meals. In an email to CNN, No Kid Hungry says that from “September 2022 to May 2023, No Kid Hungry grantees served more than 504 million meals to kids and families.”

Cradles to Crayons is an organization that focuses on “clothing insecurity.” They provide kids from birth through 12-years-old that are “living in homeless or low-income situations” essential items like school clothes, shoes, coats, backpacks and more. Coats, sweaters and other winter apparel are the items most in-need for the upcoming months.

True Colors United is dedicated to helping youth in the LGBTQ community. Much of their work centers around those experiencing homelessness. According to their website, “40% of the 4.2 million youth experiencing homelessness identify as LGBTQ,” and LGBTQ youth are “120% more likely to experience homelessness than their non-LGBTQ peers.” True Colors United was founded by musician Cyndi Lauper with the hopes of preventing youth homelessness through “advocacy, training, education, youth collaboration, and technical assistance programs.”

Providing joy

Beyond the essentials, there are many charities working to brighten kids’ lives through other means. These charities strive to bring kids a chance to have fun, promote self-esteem through physical activity and even spread some holiday cheer.

SeriousFun Children’s Network got its start in 1988 when actor and philanthropist Paul Newman opened The Hole in the Wall Camp in Ashford, Connecticut. The Hole in the Wall camp was a place where “kids with serious illnesses could escape the fear and isolation of their medical conditions” and just have fun. The camp, offered free of charge to the kids and their families, grew into the SeriousFun Children’s Network which now has camps and programs around the world.

The camps deal with “130 different serious medical conditions” kids might be living with and offers “a diverse range of inclusive programs such as universally accessible high ropes courses and adaptive winter sports, as well as traditional camp activities like swimming, boating and campfires.”

According to the organization, since 1988, more than 1.7 million kids and their families have gone to the camps. CEO Blake Maher writes, “As the leading network of medical specialty camps in the world, we’re committed to continuing Paul’s legacy by providing unforgettable experiences and the highest level of medical support to children and families all around the world.”

Good Sports is a non-profit that supports kids in “high-need communities” by giving them “equitable access to youth sports and physical activity.” According to the organization, “the world of youth sports has split into two groups: the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots.’” The group works “directly with the sporting goods industry to obtain a variety of sports equipment, apparel, and footwear to donate to youth organizations, schools, and other youth programs.” In an email to CNN, the group says since 2020, they have donated an average of 547,000 pieces of sporting equipment to 418,993 kids annually. They are currently working on fall/winter sports like “basketball, flag and tackle football and soccer,” which you can donate towards here.

Cake4Kids is providing a little happiness to underserved youth by giving them a sweet surprise – a birthday cake. According to Cake4Kids, they will deliver an estimated 14,000 cakes this year. The group writes that they initially catered to kids in the foster care system, but today deliver cakes to “victims of domestic violence or human trafficking, in foster care, LGBTQ+, experiencing homelessness, living below the poverty line, refugees, and unaccompanied immigrant minors.”

The Marine Toys for Tots Foundation is celebrating its 76th year of providing gifts to children in need, no matter what religion or holidays they observe. The Toys for Tots program is run by the US Marine Corps Reserve and collects new toys through toy drives around the country. Ted Silvester, Vice President of Marketing and Development, says that last year an estimated 24 million toys were given out to almost 10 million children.

“Tuesday, we call ‘Giving Toysday’ and we really generate quite a bit of support from the public. We have several hundred thousand toy collection bins all throughout the US where we’re collecting toys via our local chapters,” Silvester said. Toy donations need be new unwrapped toys.

If donating funds is not the right option for you right now, look for ways to volunteer or contribute to your cause non-monetarily.

GivingTuesday CEO, Asha Curran, writes that “There’s no act of kindness that is too small. You can lend a helping hand to a neighbor, be extra helpful to the people around you, or tell someone you were thinking of them. Make generosity your own by weaving it into your daily actions.”

How ever you may celebrate, Happy Giving Tuesday.

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