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 Dec. 1 this year?

Giving Tuesday, also listed at #GivingTuesday (and 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 own 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.

(NOTICE: Since our online donation site, Razoo.com, recently announced it is waiving transaction fees through the end of the year, we are extending our #GivingTuesday campaign through Dec. 31. If you decide to donate, please use our #GivingTuesday page to help us avoid the transaction fees. We appreciate your support.)

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 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) 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 $10, but we appreciate whatever you can give. A donation of $1,000 will provide all the materials, lessons and mentoring needed for a summer with one of our garden mentoring families (we usually add three new families each year, and we offer the families two years in the program).

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 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.