Most people have heard about Black Friday, Small-Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday, three consumer-oriented days geared toward shopping for the holidays. But have you heard about Giving Tuesday, which takes place on Nov. 29 this year?

Giving Tuesday, also listed at #GivingTuesday (known as #GivingTuesdayAK in Alaska), is a day for people to celebrate generosity and give to worthy nonprofits who support the local community. This year, the Sitka Local Foods Network is launching its second Giving Tuesday online fundraiser to help us meet our mission of increasing the amount of locally produced and harvested food in the diets of Southeast Alaskans.

When you donate to the Sitka Local Foods Network you support us as we host the Sitka Farmers Markets during the summer, grow food at the St. Peter’s Fellowship Farm communal garden, and teach people about gardening and food preservation through our education program (which includes a garden buddy/mentor program for beginning gardeners). We also help with other local-food-related projects in town, such as Fish To Schools (which puts more locally caught seafood in school meals), our fruit tree project (where we got more community apple and cherry trees in town), the Sitka Kitch community rental commercial kitchen, or the Sitka Community Food Assessment (which gave us baseline data on food security issues in Sitka).

It’s easy to donate to our Giving Tuesday fundraiser through our secure donation page hosted by Razoo.com (an online site that collects donations for nonprofit organizations). The minimum donation through this site is $5, but we appreciate whatever you can give. A donation of $10 can help us purchase some seeds or work gloves, while a gift of $100 can buy wood, soil and seeds to build a raised garden bed. While #GivingTuesday launches on Nov. 29 this year, our #GivingTuesday donation page will accept gifts through Dec. 31 in case you need some charitable write-offs for tax purposes.

We just received our Pick.Click.Give. donations for 2016, $2,800 from 42 donors, and we thank all those people who chose to share part of their Alaska Permanent Fund Dividends with us. Unfortunately, the Sitka Local Foods Network will not be in the 2017 Pick.Click.Give. program due to a clerical snafu. We hope to return to the program in 2018.

For those who prefer to donate the old-fashioned way, you can send a check to the Sitka Local Foods Network, 408 Marine Street, Suite D, Sitka, Alaska, 99835. For those looking for end-of-the-year tax deductions, we are a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and our EIN is 26-4629930. Please let us know if you need a receipt. We hold a Bronze level rating with GuideStar.org, and we also are listed with Benevity.org (a site where employee donations to nonprofits sometimes are matched by larger corporations).

We thank you for supporting local foods in Sitka, Alaska. Your donation is greatly appreciated. If you need more information about our organization or a receipt for tax purposes, you can email the Sitka Local Foods Network board of directors at sitkalocalfoodsnetwork@gmail.com.