For this holiday season, we asked local organizations making a difference in the community exactly how your contribution could help them. The response we got was overwhelming — 46 groups answered, detailing where a total of $892,400 would be allocated. Here’s how your contributions can help.
$50
Marin Humane
Marin Humane transforms lives through exceptional animal care, humane education and advocacy. Every day, it inspires compassion and positive relationships between people and animals.
$50 buys 10 “going to my forever home” carriers for cats and small pets like guinea pigs and rabbits.
North Marin Community Services
North Marin Community Services empowers youth, adults and families in the region’s diverse community to achieve well-being, growth and success. It envisions a strong community with opportunities for all.
$50 makes a holiday wish come true for a teen whose family is facing financial hardship. At North Marin Community Services’ treasured Holiday Share event, 400+ children receive toys, bikes, and clothing, and teens receive gift cards to purchase items from their wish lists.
Kids Cooking For Life
$50 covers the cost of fresh, nutritious groceries to be used in recipes for two classes, serving 30 young chefs.
Marin Court Appointed Special Advocates
$50 supports a CASA volunteer in traveling out-of-county to visit a foster child or youth placed with an out-of-county resource family.
San Francisco-Marin Food Bank
$50 provides enough food for 100 meals.
O’Hanlon Center for the Arts
$50 pays for art materials for a child in a weeklong art summer camp.
Milo Foundation
$50 purchases 40lbs of puppy food or microchip a litter of puppies and kittens.
Karma Club
$50 provides healthy snacks for growing teens.
$100
Gilead House
Gilead House remains a place of hope for unsheltered moms and their kids. For over 20 years, its mission has been to inspire hope and empower unsheltered single moms and their children toward financial stability and independence as they navigate the journey to self-reliance.
$100 buys public transportation for a single mom returning to college to finish her degree.
Conservation Corps North Bay
$100 covers transportation for the corpsmembers to school and to work, where they protect our communities from the effects of climate change by reducing fire fuels and responding to floods.
The Marine Mammal Center
$100 helps provide one day’s worth of food and medication for a sea otter patient in The Marine Mammal Center’s hospital.
ExtraFood
$100 provides 44 meals for a family of four and since rotting food in landfills releases methane, a main cause of global warming, we would prevent 484 pounds of harmful gas from entering the atmosphere by diverting perfectly good food from being thrown away.
$250
SchoolsRule-Marin
Its mission is to close the inequality gap by helping ensure that excellent educational opportunities are available to every student in every public school in Marin regardless of socioeconomic status.
$250 buys one tablet for a classroom to provide students with access to online reading and math programs.
Guide Dogs for the Blind
$250 assists with the cost of a “Puppy Raising Kit” for a volunteer raiser.
Slide Ranch
$250 would send three students on scholarship to Slide Ranch for an immersive and educational experience in nature.
Community Institute for Psychotherapy
$250 provides five hours of therapy and referrals for a young mother experiencing the anxiety, guilt and isolation of postpartum depression.
North Bay Children’s Center
$250 sponsors the continuing education courses for a preschool teacher as part of their professional development training to bring best practices back to the classroom and beyond.
Vivalon
$250 lends a helping hand by delivering 36 home-cooked meals and performing safety checks for homebound older adults, ensuring their well-being is safeguarded through our Meals on Wheels program.
$500
Make It Home
Make It Home helps Bay Area families and individuals transitioning out of crisis. The group recycles, repurposes and curates gently-used, donated furnishings to transform empty spaces into homes. Make It Home Bay Area’s mission is to end furniture poverty while protecting the environment.
$500 covers the cost of transporting a household of new or gently used furniture to a family in need.
Bridge the Gap
$500 allows one high school student to attend its Comprehensive High School and College Prep Support Program for one month. This program encompasses academic guidance, mentoring, socio-emotional support, enrichment programs, life-skills training and comprehensive college access assistance.
St. Vincent de Paul Society of Marin
$500 pays for a precariously housed senior’s utility bill for three months to help them stay housed during a crisis.
Cedars
$500 provides one week of activities, such as parties, games, entertainment, and other opportunities for 90 residents.
WildCare
$500 purchases an incubator to keep tiny baby opossums warm and safe when they are at their smallest.
Ritter Center
$500 provides two medical visits to people who have no insurance or resources to pay for healthcare.
$1,000
Parent Services Project
Parent Services Project engages and strengthens families to take leadership for the well-being of their children, families and communities.
$1,000 pays for parent leaders to host weekly developmental playgroups for one month. Our playgroups are for children ages birth to five and their parents and are centered around the belief that strong parent-child interaction and attachment are one of the most important drivers of healthy/social emotional and cognitive development in children. Our goal is to surround families with support and give them the tools they need to help their children thrive and enter school ready to learn.
Okizu
$1,000 provides a week-long summer camp experience at Camp Okizu. All Northern California kids with cancer and their siblings are invited to attend free of charge and are given the opportunity to build confidence, develop lasting friendships, and find support and joy among true peers as they navigate childhood cancer. Transportation, food, lodging, and priceless memories are included. “We go to the hospital for treatment, but we go to Camp Okizu to heal.”
Youth in Arts
$1,000 provides eight, innovative, in-school dance classes with a YIA teaching artist.
Friends of China Camp
$1,000 purchases and installs a new redwood picnic table.
Homeward Bound of Marin
$1,000 provides a week of counseling and wraparound services to help someone end homelessness in their life.
PNOC Foundation
$1,000 helps a child with brain cancer access promising new treatment strategies. Unfortunately for a lot of pediatric brain tumor diagnoses, there is no standard of care. PNOC wants to change that and wants to have a treatment available for every child, but without the development of clinical trials a lot of patients really don’t have access to any potential therapies. Knowing that the disease has a grave outcome, it is so important for families that they at least are given an opportunity.
Tribe Rising India
$1,000 helps create and fill labs to bring the new high school building up to par with other high schools and fulfill our requirements for licensing. Computers, biology, geography and physics labs are top needs.
$2,500
10,000 Degrees
10,000 Degrees achieves educational equity and to support students from low-income backgrounds to and through college to realize their full potential and positively impact their communities and the world.
$2,500 funds ongoing training for its Fellows, who provide 10,000 Degrees students with 1:1 near-peer coaching, college and financial aid counseling and scholarship and financial aid management. Fellows support students in all Marin high schools and at colleges across the nation.
Marin Girls Chorus
$2,500 covers an entire year of tuition for one Concert Division singer, including pedagogy, music theory, rehearsals, weekend retreat, concert dress and outreach concerts.
Enriching Lives Through Music
$2,500 sponsors a young musician for a semester.
MarinArts
$2,500 provides a scholarship to a worthy arts organization for one half of the cost of one entire branding and fundraising session of MarinArts Presents.
Marin Foster Care Association
$2,500 helps fund the Opportunity Project for five foster kids, which could include a musical instrument for a budding musician, a Chromebook or tablet for school, a prom dress, or a sports uniform.
Marin County Bicycle Coalition
$2,500 provides nourishing snacks and a year of classes for 10 students learning to travel by bike.
$5,000
Schurig Center for Brain Injury Recovery
Harnessing the healing power of community, Schurig Center for Brain Injury Recovery is Marin’s only nonprofit helping survivors and their families adapt to life changes and thrive after a brain injury, like TBI, concussion or stroke.
$5,000 funds four months of weekly art therapy classes, a powerful therapeutic tool that helps brain injury and stroke survivors increase memory, improve problem solving and process emotions to cope with trauma.
Ceres Community Project
$5,000 would nourish a client who lives alone is too sick to shop and cook for themselves with one year of medically tailored meals, nutrition education and RDN support.
Beyond Differences
$5,000 covers transportation for 10 low-income teens to attend Beyond Differences’ Activist Academy, a four-day immersive leadership training that celebrates identity, community, and belonging.
Adopt A Family
$5,000 covers rent for two families on the edge of eviction to prevent homelessness.
Lifehouse Agency
$5,000 funds an electric wheelchair for one Lifehouse Client with mobility challenges.
RISE Scholars
$5,000 pays for soccer coaching for the fall and spring season.
Center for Volunteer & Nonprofit Leadership (CVNL)
$5,000 funds scholarships for two first-time nonprofit executive directors to participate in the Excellence in Leadership Program and receive three, one-hour coaching sessions. CVNL’s Excellence in Leadership Program (ELP) Provides nonprofit professionals with over 30 hours of teaching and coaching from expert faculty and industry leaders while strengthening nonprofit peer networks. Participants develop executive leadership, deepen their understanding of executive responsibilities, and come away with a Certificate of Completion in Excellence in Leadership.
$10,000
Little Wishes
Little Wishes makes a big difference for seriously ill, hospitalized children facing difficult journeys. Young patients identify what makes them happy and wish for something that will fill their hearts and brighten their darkest days. All wishes take place in the hospital, and a child may wish for something every two weeks giving them a positive event to look forward to. Receiving wishes also helps patients replace anxiety and fear with hope and joy.
$10,000 provides one year’s worth of little wishes to seriously ill, hospitalized children on one unit/floor of a Bay Area Children’s hospital.
Richardson Bay Audubon Center & Sanctuary
$10,000 builds an outdoor classroom for events, programs, and engagement opportunities.
Sparkle Foundation
$10,000 provides food, toiletries and cleaning supplies to 100 single mother families this holiday season.
