East Texas Giving Day will support Texarkana nonprofits

TEXARKANA, Texas — Twenty Texarkana-area nonprofits are participating in East Texas Giving Day, an event aimed at boosting donations to more than 190 organizations in 32 counties.

Organized by the Tylerbased East Texas Communities Foundation, the April 28 event makes donating to the charities of one’s choice easy through a onestop website. Donors can choose one or more participating nonprofits or give to a general community fund that will be distributed to them all.

Donors can also filter nonprofits by which need extra assistance because of the coronavirus pandemic, ETCF President Kyle

Penney said.

“With COVID, everything’s taken on a whole new perspective,” he said. “This may be the only fundraiser these organizations can have this spring.”

That is the case for one participating local nonprofit, Alzheimer’s Alliance Tri-State Area, which has postponed its main annual fundraiser, the Twice as Fine Texarkana

Wine Festival, because of coronavirus concerns.

The Wine Festival normally nets the organization about $200,000 each spring, and all the funds are used locally to support dementia patients and their caregivers, Executive Director Terrie Arnold said.

Though Arnold hopes to bring

the festival back in the fall, for now Alzheimer’s Alliance is dependent on donations from individuals, and the uncertainty of the situation makes East Texas Giving Day more important, she said.

Local nonprofit For the Sake of One is also participating in the event, and a matching grant it has received means the first $5,000 donated will be doubled, founder Angela Coston said.

For the Sake of One provides social, material and spiritual support for families and children involved in the foster care system. Social distancing has meant that some services have become more expensive and donations are harder to come by, Coston said. For example, a weekly “parents’ night out” potluck has become a “parents’ night in” meal delivery service, which costs more.

Other local nonprofits participating in East Texas

Giving Day include: Caddo Area Council Evergreen Life Services Habitat for Humanity HandsOn Texarkana Harvest Regional Bank

Just Love and Kindness Lancer Legacy Ranch Northeast Texas CASA Randy Sams’ Outreach Shelter

Food

Rock

Center

Runnin’ WJ Ranch

St. James Day School Susan G. Komen Texarkana Foundation

Texarkana Regional Arts and Humanities Council

Texarkana Symphony Orchestra

Texas A&M

Solid

Resource

College

UniversityTexarkana

Foundation Endowed Scholarship Fund

United Way of Greater Texarkana

The East Texas Communities Foundation is accepting early donations that will count toward nonprofits’ Giving Day totals. For more information or to donate, visit easttexasgivingday.org or call 903-533-0208.