GivingTuesday reminds us of importance of generosity
On Dec. 2, the United States will take note of GivingTuesday as a way to celebrate the importance of generosity.
In 2024, GivingTuesday generated $3.6 billion that was donated by 36.1 million participants, according to givingtuesday.org. Since its inception in 2012, Giving Tuesday has generated $18.5 billion. GivingTuesday follows Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday.
GivingTuesday, according to the organization, is a global cause to encourage many people to give to causes with a goal that collectively pooling resources can accomplish much good. We applaud the initiative that starts by building or strengthening a community as the foundation with the ultimate goal of changing the world.
A GivingTuesday plan carries out many themes that a vocational agriculture teacher would use in advising his FFA students when they are raising funds for a cross-country trip.
Those principles include putting together a concise plan that can easily be communicated and marketed, letting donors know why it is important for them to contribute, building on success, writing a thank-you note, and each student telling about his or her experience when he or she gets back home.
Successful High Plains families, businesses and churches use similar models.
Benevolence is an important cog to our life’s journey.
Shop at home
Thanksgiving is a reminder that Christmas is less than a month away and points to the importance of shopping at local stores, particularly in rural communities. Many merchants
use Small Business Saturday as a theme to woo shoppers to support local businesses. Many small businesses employ neighbors and friends, collect sales taxes and pay property taxes—and that is just the beginning. While it has the theme of “Small Business” the fact is these enterprises are the backbone of rural communities and collectively they make up a giant powerhouse.
Small business owners and managers support extracurricular activities. In rural schools that means band, choir, FFA, 4-H, and sports. If you need a reminder, look at the front window or at the counter where posters are prominently displayed. Besides announcing car washes, concerts, cookie and fruit sales, merchants gladly help sell tickets. They often are asked by school youth and their advisers to donate merchandise or services that are sold or auctioned off.
These merchants are glad to help, and one way to repay them for their generosity is to stop in and visit with them and look at the goods and services they offer. Being generous can be a two-way conservation as building a relationship builds goodwill and fosters trust.
When shoppers engage and invest their hard-earned dollars in local stores, those businesses then have resources to expand and add employees.
There is tangible value, too. Buying a toy tractor or combine at a farm equipment dealership brings joy to the giver and builds on a multi-generational philosophy of tying the importance of farming and ranching to the present and to the future.
At HPJ, we hope every reader has a memorable holiday season with stockings filled with joy.
Dave Bergmeier can be reached at 620-227-1822 or [email protected].
