Idaho Gives 2020 is here!
Through May 7th, donate to a charity of your choice that supports local non-profits directly. With over 500 organizations to choose from and several donors matching donations, donating during Idaho Gives is a great way to give back to the community in an impactful way. This year, This Is Boise has rounded up some charities that we care about to share with you, however, there are so many more worthy organizations to choose from.
Idaho Gives is in its 7th year of operation. Since 2013, the nonprofit has raised over $7 million to charities state-wide. Check out the Idaho Gives website to find non-profits you may be interested in donating to! You can participate in this annual state-wide charity event until May 7th.
Boise Bully Breed Rescue
From the Boise Bully Breed Rescue website:
Boise Bully Breed Rescue is a non-profit 501(c)(3) charitable organization, which means the rescue relies on and is dependent upon generous tax-deductible donations. The rescue needs donations for funding for medical, training, and operational expenses for the rescue’s Animal Care Facility.
Boise Bully Breed aims to educate the public regarding bully breeds, promote responsible pet ownership, promote spay and neuter programs, advocate against breed-specific legislation, and the inhumane activity of dogfighting.
Boise Bully Breed is volunteer-run and only accepts animals from shelters.
Catch
Goal – $20,000
Catch has the mission to provide housing to every person that needs it. They aim to end homelessness with the idea of providing “housing first”. They use a 3-part action plan in the order of stable housing, financial independence, and resiliency.
From the Catch website:
Catch believes that every family, every person deserves a home. The vision is to end homelessness in the Treasure Valley. Period. To witness a Treasure Valley where every neighbor has a home to home to call their own, and where any person who falls into homelessness is rapidly housed and given the support to ensure they are never without a home again. Everyone needs a home. That is why Catch works to create a safe, healthy, connected community by embracing Housing First best practices, empowering those without housing, building collaborative partnerships, and increasing public understanding to end homelessness. CATCH offers a new beginning to families who are experiencing homelessness which leads to self-sufficiency in over 80% of families that work with Catch. On average it costs $5,000 to stably house one family experiencing homelessness. Catch is currently raising funds to end homelessness for three families in the community.
Discovery Center of Idaho
Goal- $5,000
From DCIDAHO website:
The Discovery Center of Idaho is Idaho’s only hands-on science center. The museum is an interactive science center featuring exhibits and educational programs that offer authentic, sensory experiences making science, technology, engineering, and math tangible for people of all ages and from all walks of life.
The Discovery Center’s mission is to inspire lifelong interest and learning in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). Learning is fun and expands minds and lives. Because of the opportunities provided by The Discovery Center, the community is more scientifically literate, curious, and empowered to explore.
Through participatory science exhibits, demonstrations, and classes, students and families experience science in an entertaining, engaging, and educational environment. Exhibits, programs, and events guide people in understanding the connection between scientific principles and their everyday lives. By stimulating visitors’ imaginations with open-ended exploration, the Discovery Center inspires lifelong learning. While temporarily closed, the Center is continuing to provide compelling learning opportunities and resources for families, teachers, and the community to ensure that curiosity never closes!
Idaho Trails Association
Goal- $5,000
From ITA’s website:
For some young people living in Idaho today, the opportunities or resources don’t exist to experience our state’s extensive trail system and the wonder of being outdoors on a trip. ITA’s Youth Program aims to get students ages 14-18 outside and learning how to maintain trails as part of a team. On one-week trips into Idaho’s backcountry, students learn communication skills and problem-solving. The program fosters an appreciation of the beauty of Idaho and the precious resources that Idaho has to offer.
ITA’s Youth Trail Crew program began in 2019 with three trips and ITA is hoping to expand to eight trips for the 2021 and 2022 season. This year, TA has been awarded a challenge grant from the Harry Morrison Foundation. If $20,000 is raised this year for Idaho’s youth, ITA will receive an additional $10,000. For every $2 you give, $1 will be matched to help get young people outside and learning valuable life lessons. This Idaho Gives, consider giving a donation to support ITA’s growing youth program.
Jesse Tree
Goal- $25,000
From Jesse Tree’s website:
Since 1999 Jesse Tree has been helping low-income households facing homelessness by providing rental assistance, case management, financial wellness planning, and landlord mediation while connecting people to other resources that may help in times of need.
Since COVID occurred, Jesse Tree’s call volume has tripled. Due to community support, Jesse Tree is now able to serve more people than ever before, but the need only continues to grow and hundreds of families go unserved each month.
Your support during this campaign will allow Jesse Tree to provide support and rent assistance to more people who need it, right now.
While it costs Jesse Tree on average $900 to keep people in their homes, once a family becomes homeless it costs up to $10,000 to re-house them, and each individual who is homeless costs the community over $53,000 per year in supportive and emergency services. Supporting a household during their greatest time of need is a cost-effective intervention that also allows people to avoid the traumatizing, lifelong impacts eviction and homelessness cause.
Learning Lab
Goal- $10,000
From Learning Lab’s website:
Learning Lab is a literacy education center for low-income adults and families with young children. Instruction is individualized, based on students’ needs and goals. Adult students may work on basic skills including math, reading, writing, spelling, and, for many, English language learning. Students may also prepare for GED and citizenship tests. All classes include one-on-one tutoring and the use of educational software. In the family program, while parents work on their literacy skills, their preschool children engage in fun, literacy-based learning activities in their own classroom, so they are better prepared for school. As part of each session, parents work with their children to understand how to support their child’s learning at home and in school.
This year, all donations up to $10,000 will be matched by a generous donor.
MK Nature Center
Goal- $15,000
From the MK Nature Center website:
The Idaho Fish and Game MK Nature Center offers a unique wildlife experience on a 4.6-acre site along the Boise River Greenbelt. The StreamWalk and Visitor Center provides a glimpse of Idaho’s many landscapes and abundant wildlife. Underwater viewing windows along the stream walk give visitors a fish-eye view of the world.
The center is open year-round and offers a variety of educational experiences, including learning programs, tours, scavenger hunts, and volunteer programs. Two targeted projects for 2020 are building outdoor educational kiosks and becoming an AmeriCorps member.
PAWS Rescue Inc.
From the PAWS website:
Since 2013, PAWS has helped save thousands of cats and dogs throughout Idaho from neglect, abuse, and death. Many rescues come from the Burley Idaho Animal Shelter where PAWS has transformed what was once a high kill facility to a shelter where every adoptable animal gets a second chance! PAWS also takes in stray pets from all over Idaho including Twin Falls, Boise, Nampa, and Caldwell.
PAWS Rescue, Inc. saves all breeds of cats and dogs of all ages as well as animals who have been hit by cars, shot, abandoned, abused, and neglected.
Rescued animals are placed in loving foster homes or transferred to other no-kill partner facilities giving them a chance to find the perfect forever home.
PAWS Rescue, Inc. is a 501c3 volunteer-based rescue organization that focuses on saving dogs and cats from high kill shelters and dangerous situations.
Pride Foundation
From the Pride Foundation website:
Pride Foundation’s work is grounded in the simple, yet revolutionary belief every person should be able to live safely, openly, and genuinely in all the places we call home. This is the same belief that has guided Pride Foundation’s visionary leaders for more than three decades.
Pride Foundation was founded in 1985, in the midst of the HIV & AIDS crisis, by a small but courageous group of people who came together to create a source of light and hope during a period of profound darkness.
Together, Pride Foundation and donors have invested more than $70 million in transformative community change in pursuit of this vision.
In addition to the annual community grant and academic scholarship programs, Pride Foundation in 2020 launched a new Crisis Community Care Fund in an effort to support community groups and organizations responding to the COVID-19 crisis, and whose work is being impacted by the factors surrounding the spread.
Sawtooth Botanical Garden
Goal – $8,000
From the Sawtooth Botanical Garden website:
The Sawtooth Botanical Garden is public non-profit 501 (c)3. SBG is not supported by any government entity, only its generous benefactors. It was founded in 1994 by a small local group of passionate gardeners and environmentalists. With the generous support of the Global Environmental Project Institute, this group was able to secure a long-term lease for a five-acre site, build a community building with a solar greenhouse, and begin their dream of establishing a Public Garden.
The goal of the Garden is to establish a place to build community through the understanding and exploration of both native and cultivated plants. Understanding the unique ecology of this region and exploring the wonders of gardening provided a multitude of opportunities to “celebrate plants and inspire people”.
Through its programs, the Sawtooth Botanical Garden provides information on gardening and ecological principles relevant to the areas climatic conditions and plant and human communities.
