Been thinking of writing a check for charity?
Do it today, which is Give to the Max Day in Minnesota. All donations to a good cause in the state made between 8 a.m. today and 8 a.m. Wednesday will be matched with some of $500,000 from the Saint Paul Foundation, Minneapolis Foundation and Bush Foundation. That means a minimum donation of $10 could result in as much as $20 to the American Indian Community Housing Organization, the Duluth Lighthouse for the Blind, the Damiano Center or any of countless other nonprofits in Duluth, the Northland or across the state.
Donations, which are tax deductible, just need to be made at GiveMN.org. They can be made with the assurance that all the money will land with the chosen charity. That's because GiveMN's funding partners are covering transaction fees and other overhead costs.
In addition to the matches, today's effort will award cash prizes of $5,000, $2,500 and $1,000 to the three nonprofits that receive donations from the most individual donors.
A campaign has been launched to help Second Harvest Northern Lakes Food Bank take home that $5,000 top prize. The goal is worthy. Few charitable causes have been hit as hard by the recession as food banks. And Second Harvest serves about 140 groups in the region, providing about 1.7 million meals this year. Demand at food shelves in Northeastern Minnesota and Northwestern Wisconsin is up 28 percent, the News Tribune reported Monday.
ADVERTISEMENT
"These are hard times," YWCA Development Director Wendy Ruhnke said in the article, headlined, "Help Second Harvest win bonus." "My experience has been that the people that have resources want to do their part. ... People that have jobs are feeling really fortunate and grateful and want to do what they can to help others."
Those feeling really fortunate will need to also be feeling really generous. A search for "Duluth" at the GiveMN.org Web site resulted in a list of 936 nonprofit organizations, all of them hoping for and in need of contributions. Searches for "Hermantown," "Proctor" and "Two Harbors" generated another 110 worthy causes. A search for "Cloquet" netted 141 hits.
That's a lot of need. Good thing the Northland is filled with a lot of generosity.
Today is the day for anyone who has been thinking of giving -- today and every day.
