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Today is NEPA Gives day.
To quote the event’s website nepagives.org, this is “a one-day online giving extravaganza that’s all about giving back to the community.”
Well, frankly, that should be every day, except it doesn’t have to be online most of the time. The notion of giving back, in any of countless ways, should sit your heart all year.
But this is the day a lot of organizations team up to make your online donation through NEPA Gives more powerful. Again, to quote the website:
Scranton Area Community Foundation, The Luzerne Foundation, Greater Pike Community Foundation, Wayne County Community Foundation, and the Northeastern Pennsylvania Nonprofit & Community Assistance Center (NCAC) have teamed up to host NEPA Gives.
For 24 hours—from 12:00 a.m. to 11:59:59 p.m.—on Friday, June 4, 2021, donors may make secure donations to their favorite local nonprofit organizations through the NEPA Gives online platform. Donations to participating nonprofits will be enhanced with bonus funds provided by NEPA Gives sponsors—making donor dollars stretch further! Nonprofits will also be eligible for cash prizes. Registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations serving residents in Northeastern Pennsylvania can participate in NEPA Gives. And, anyone can donate!
There’s a lot more to it, including a slew of prizes for organizations that get donations at certain times, the organizations “with the most unique donors” at different hours, and the organization “that has the donor from the furthest distance away from the NEPA region,” which the event coordinators determined is Elmhurst Reservoir. All told, there are some 80 such prizes, so if you want to really make your money go for, we encourage you to check out the full list at the event website.
And there are 30 web pages of “NEPA Gives Fundraisers” so you can pick the cause you favor and donate to it.
It’s hard not to like this idea. Heck, it’s hard not to love it — unless your an unreformed Scrooge shaking your fist at the sky right now saying “Are there no prisons? And the Union workhouses, are they still in operation?” Or perhaps you’re a member of the Coalcracker Curmudgeons Confederacy. And no, we didn’t check to see if that’s a real thing, but maybe it should be. (Frankly, we know some grizzled veteran journalists who would fit right in).
This is local foundations, fund-raising organizations and sponsors teaming up to help a lot of people in a lot of ways through a lot of non-profit agencies. The groups you can help are broad and eclectic, so it’s hard to believe most people wouldn’t find one they’d be happy to support. It’s easy to participate as long as you have access to the internet, and easy to donate (each agency in the “NEPA Gives Fundraisers” list has its own “donate” button.
Most important, it is local non-profits asking for local support to help improve the lives of local residents. By combining it all into one grand day of giving, they have fashioned a sort of online block party to help a neighbor, except the neighbors live throughout the region and anyone can join the party.
It is, in short, a modern interpretation of how a community should work.
So on this day, please give, NEPA.
— Times Leader