Giving Tuesday: After Black Friday and Cyber Monday, charities ask for donations

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Did Black Friday and Cyber Monday put a dent in your wallet? Perhaps you stocked up on Christmas gifts or finally replaced a broken television.

Now that Canadians have spent on themselves and their loved ones, charities are asking you to think of the most needy on Giving Tuesday.

“It’s been around for about two years and it’s tied to Black Friday and Cyber Monday. We give, give, after spending,” Paul Nazareth, vice president of community engagement at Canada Helps, explained Tuesday.

The moniker was coined in 2012, when the UN Foundation and the 92nd Street Y teamed up in the United States. Giving Tuesday Canada began the next year, when CanadaHelps partnered with the GIV3 Foundation. The movement now includes 18,000 global partners and activities in 43 countries.

Canada Helps is a social enterprise charity that connects Canadians to any charity in the country, Nazareth explained. By logging on to the website and choosing from a dropdown menu of charities – including categories like environment, religion, and social services –  Canadians can then decide if they want to make a one-time or monthly donation.

Thousands of charities are now involved – every single charity in Canada is on the website, Nazareth said.

Lesley Hendry, executive director of The Shoebox Project for Shelters, said her charity has only been around since 2011, but has already seen an enormous impact. The charity collects and distributes gifts – wrapped in a shoebox – to women who are homeless or at-risk of homelessness.

“We ask people to ask people to pack a shoebox full of basic needs and little luxuries that any woman would enjoy, and drop it off,” Hendry said Tuesday.

“We’ll drop it off at shelters and resource centres.”

Also in Toronto is the Toronto Children’s Concert Choir & Performing Arts Company (TC3), which is participating in Giving Tuesday for the first time. The organization, which is based in Weston, has been around for 15 years and offers performing arts programming that focuses mainly on African-Canadian youth, through Afro-Caribbean dancing and drumming as well as their award-winning Gospel and R&B youth choir. It’s supported by The HopeWorks Connection.

Click here to donate to TC3.

Clarification: The charities No Strings Theatre and Ballet Creole are separate from TC3 and each other, but are both participating in Giving Tuesday.

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