12 Charities Coveteur Staffers Are Supporting This Giving Tuesday
Learn more about the programs and communities near and dear to us.
It's easy to get lost in the hustle and bustle of the holiday season, but it's also a time to reflect and give back. So many people and communities go without during the holidays, so there's no time like the present to give back to the programs and communities you love. And lest we forget, but giving comes in so many forms, from volunteering your time and services to donating money or goods to charity. Below, Coveteur staffers share the causes they’re supporting this Giving Tuesday.
Leigh Weiss, Affiliate Coordinator
City Harvest
Over 1.5 million New Yorkers face food insecurity—this number includes one in four children. New York City also has over 26,000 restaurants, 1,100 grocery stores, and a great number of food wholesalers and distributors, each with a surplus of food that goes to waste daily. To serve hungry New Yorkers and combat food waste, City Harvest created a solution over 40 years ago, rescuing and delivering over 1 billion pounds of food to date. Some of my favorite memories are while dining with close family and friends, and it brings me joy knowing hungry New Yorkers also are given these opportunities through City Harvest.
Samantha Wu, Marketing Coordinator
Apex for Youth
Based in NYC, Apex for Youth empowers underserved Asian and immigrant youth through mentorship and educational programs for over 1600 students from 1st to 12th grade each year. Through the Apex community, students are given long term support and opportunity for growth to become confident and college-ready. As an Apex for Youth Volunteer, I’m grateful to be able to give back to the AAPI community and support the variety of learning programs Apex puts forth.
Katie Mok, Editorial Production Fellow
Heart of Dinner
From a hearty feast to a plate of fresh cut fruit, food has long been my love language, something I’ve proudly inherited from my grandparents. Enter Heart of Dinner, an NYC organization that provides isolated and homebound elderly within the AAPI communities with hot meals, pantry essentials, and bulk ingredients, all while supporting small local businesses during the COVID-related recovery process. Heart of Dinner combats isolation and food insecurity experienced by many Asian elderly in the NYC area and often goes by unnoticed.
Amanda Beausoleil, Associate Manager Brand Partnerships & Sales
SIRA
SIRA is a self-injury recovery non-profit. SIRA's mission is to create a safe space for individuals who struggle with Non-Suicidal Self-Injury (NSSI). In order to help lower the stigma, SIRA’s executive team speaks to healthcare providers and schools to teach NSSI education (from a lived-experience point of view and evidence based scientific research) and to provide recovery resources and support.
This non-profit is very dear to my heart, as I have personally felt the benefits of SIRA’s peer support meetings and community. Thanks to the SIRA community, I am over seven years self-injury free and lead the organization today. Self-Injury is highly common, yet rarely talked about. It is my mission, along with SIRA's, to change the conversation about self-injury and to create a more compassionate and informed discourse about this isolating behavior that plagues so many. By telling our story we hope to encourage others to reach out for help, and to let individuals struggling know that recovery is possible and you are not alone.
Larissa May (Larz) is a social entrepreneur , digital wellness pioneer, and founder of #HalfTheStory (HTS), a non-profit dedicated to empowering the next generation's relationship with social media. It began in 2015 when Larz decided to forego the trend of curating a picture perfect life on social media and open up about her mental health struggles, the other #HalfTheStory. In the six years since its inception, #HalfTheStory has grown into a globally recognized movement, pioneering a worldwide conversation about the importance of digital wellbeing for youth. #HalfTheStory's hero program Social Media U, is an intervention backed program that teaches middle schoolers and high schoolers how to develop positive and healthy relationships with the digital world. They have been backed by Pinterest, Maybelline, and some of the leading influential figures. In May 2022, Larz led the charge on the Social Media Duty to Children’s Act in California. A first-of-its-kind legislation, AB2408 holds tech companies accountable for using addictive algorithms against youth and takes steps to protect our data which created a global conversation. Donations help #HTS achieve their vision to make digital wellness accessible to all from school education to state and national policy.
The JCK Foundation is a mental health non-profit that focuses on OCD and overall mental health well-being. After John Tessitore lost his friend and mentor, John Cleaver Kelly to his battle with OCD, John T. founded the JCK Foundation in his honor. As a child, John Tessitore struggled with OCD and confided in family friend John Cleaver Kelly, who mentored and comforted John T. throughout childhood and adolescence. Today, The JCK Foundation provides mental health education to schools. Donations to JCK help provide them the ability to reach youths on every continent, learn about their mental-health and create their own healthy coping skills and tool-kits.
Ruthie Friedlander and Christina Grasso are the founders of The Chain. They founded the nonprofit in 2017 due to their own battles with eating disorders. Friedlander and Grasso are in the fashion and beauty industry and wanted to serve their peers and women within the industry who also struggle with eating disorders. This led the duo to creating The Chain, a peer support organization where connection, support, and community are key. The Chain has partnered on wellness initiatives with brands like Cynthia Rowley, Outdoor Voices, and Chillhouse. Donations to The Chain allow the nonprofit to keep the conversation and community growing. Your donation brings support and information to individuals within the fashion industry who struggle with disordered eating.
Caroline Dunn, Manager, Sales & Brand Partnerships
Everytown For Gun Safety
Everytown is a nonprofit organization working to end gun violence. We are reminded so horrifyingly often of the gun crisis in our country, and a donation to Everytown will help support education about common sense gun laws, opposition to armed extremism, pressuring lawmakers to improve gun laws, and amplification of the voices of survivors of gun violence.
Leya Kaufman, Head of Brand & Publisher
Museum of Jewish Heritage
This November, I shared my grandfather’s Holocaust survival story with the Museum of Jewish Heritage at the 25th Annual Generation to Generation event. I had read and heard his story countless times throughout my entire life–but November 15th, 2022 was the first time I told it. With antisemitism on the rise and a dwindling number of Holocaust survivors left, it is the responsibility of their descendants, like me, to keep their stories alive. I’ll be donating here this Giving Tuesday to fund the educational resources they provide to local New York schools. I truly believe that Never Again is now and that it starts with all of us.
Throughout the entire year, our hearts have ached for the Ukranians caught in the crossfire of the war. This Giving Tuesday, I’m also aching for the children over there, especially those with special needs or medical conditions that require resources and care. Maya’s Hope is one of the safest and most reliable organizations that I trust right now to do just that. The stories of the children that Maya’s Hope have helped throughout the years remind me how incredibly grateful I am to be seated at the Thanksgiving table with my healthy babies too–so it’s time to give back.
Paige Kowal, Account Planner
Arts for All
Art has been something that has always kept me grounded throughout some of my hardest moments. Whether it be in art class or after-school activities, the support I gained through these artistic communities provided me with skills that I still implement today (artistically and otherwise). Arts For All creates and offers artistic opportunities for children across NYC, specifically targeting those with experience socio-economic, physical or emotional barriers and providing them creative role models within the art space.
1.3 Million Americans are living with Melanoma.The MRF is a leading voice in education and advocacy for Melanoma research, a cancer that can come in various forms and is often ignored. Their goal is to spread understanding and knowledge about how to keep yourself safe against the disease, while actively working with those whose lives are impacted by Melanoma. November is also Ocular Melanoma Awareness Month, which is a form of cancer that does not have as much exposure.