This week I’m highlighting HopeKids while I hang out with one of their families.
Today’s way you can help:
In-kind donations
Now, I had to have this explained to me. I thought, “In-kind…hmm…well, of course it’s kind. It’s a donation.”
So, here’s a more accurate definition: “in-kind” means “cash-equivalent”. So, instead of donating cash, which sometimes we’re all a little short on, you can donate a good or service. If you run a movie theater, you can donate tickets to HopeKids and then write-off those tickets on your taxes for the fair market value (how much the tickets actually cost) of the tickets.
This works for pretty much anything. I asked if I could buy tickets to a movie/show/sporting event and then donate those and that works, too.
Now, what can librarians do? There are very specific rules for what public school librarians do with old books, so we can’t donate our old books to HopeKids. BUT many of us are talented graphic designers/movie makers, whether by training or circumstances. (How many of us have had to make flyers for library events? How many have edited videos for announcements/orientation/back-to-school night?) Are you talented with a computer? You can e-mail the executive directors for the chapter to ask what work they need done. It might help them to have one less flyer to make, one less video to render, so they have more time to hang out with the kids.
You can see the e-mails for the executive directors here, as well as a list of other in-kind ideas.
