Share Hope This Holiday Season

Community Clothing, Food, & Toy Drive Information

#GivingTuesday (November 28th ) is the international kick-off day for making donations over the Christmas holiday season. There are many effective, useful, and worthy charity programs. I encourage you to inspire your family, friends, and colleagues to help support a program or organization you admire for its contributions to the community. Below are some opportunities for giving I have been made aware of this holiday season. Remember your support is key to helping the charity of your choice be successful.

Belvidere Police and Volunteers In Police Service (VIPS), will be collecting non-perishable food, toiletries, new toys, gloves, hats, mittens, and scarves. Drop off locations and dates may be found here.

Please visit Amazon Smile when holiday shopping, all you need to do is visit smile.amazon.com and select Aunt Martha’s as your charity. Then, you can shop as you normally do and Amazon will donate a percentage of your purchases to Aunt Martha’s Health & Wellness at no expense to you.

Children’s Home + Aid Holiday Shoppe is a store where children shop with volunteer Shoppe elves while their parents take a break. Gifts are priced from $1 to $5.  Proceeds benefit MotherHouse Crisis Nursery. Click here for location and date information.

Culvers in Belvidere is selling calendars for $2 to benefit the Belvidere-Boone County Food Pantry. There are several coupons for savings included with the calendar. The pantry is looking for non-perishable food items, clothing, and other household products. Please click here for location and drop off times.

Making a donation in an honoree’s name is popular this holiday season. Consider donating to the Northern Illinois Food Bank. For a$10 donation, you will receive a 5×7 holiday card to mail to the honoree. A $10 donation will provide $80 worth of groceries for a family. Donations are 100% tax deductible. To find out more ways to help or make a donation click here.

Moreover, there are many reputable charity organizations to support all year round and this holiday season. If you have questions about the charity you are donating to the Federal Trade Commission website has a before giving charity checklist that will help guide you.

As always, if you have any questions or comments about the topics discussed in this newsletter, or any other part of state government, please do not hesitate to contact my office at (815) 547-3436 or email me at sosnowski@ilhousegop.org.

Sincerely,

Joe Sosnowski
State Representative
69th District