Local non-profits look for help from community on Giving Tuesday
NEWPORT, Ky. (WKRC) - Local nonprofits are counting on the community for help during Giving Tuesday. The global movement shifts the focus of the holiday season to celebrate generosity.
Newport’s Henry Hosea House is hoping to get $25,000 in donations on Giving Tuesday to cover operations for a month at the soup kitchen.
“It cost about $20,000 to $23,000 a month to run the place with salaries and heat and insurance and food costs and lights and electric,” Steve Ader, Hosea House Board President, said. “If we can get one month out of Giving Tuesday, that’s a phenomenal, phenomenal benefit for us.”
The Hosea House serves tens of thousands of people every year in Northern Kentucky and surrounding areas, providing a hot meal five days a week and currently on select weekend days.
The pandemic served up major problems with food costs soaring for the nonprofit.
“Traditionally, if you looked at our balance sheet, our protein and food costs are fairly small, $10,000 to $15,000 a year because we had so much donated food,” Ader said. “With COVID, we were buying food and our costs when really up into the $50,000, $70,000, $100,000. That's not how we run this place. We run on a shoestring so it really kind of hurt our bottom line.”
Thankfully Ader says, donations kept the Hosea House from having to cut services.
The Hosea House also relies heavily on volunteers. There are plenty to help during the week but there’s a hesitancy from some people to help run the operation on the weekends.
“The weekends are what we want to try to bring back,” Ader said. “That's the part that we're missing.”
In addition to food, a lot of the people coming through the doors to the Hosea House need clothes to keep warm.
Tammy Bravo is a board member at the Hosea House and owns Newport business, Executive Transportation. She noticed the need for winter essentials and started the Holiday Hope Charity Drive a few years ago.
The 4th annual drive is happening on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. at Superior Prosthetic Solutions in Newport.
New sleeping bags, backpacks, hand and foot warmers, umbrellas, socks, blankets, all size boots and all size coats and hoodies are being requested.
“It’s a village. We all have to help each other and if we can't be there for each other, then you know what, what else is there? So I think that just makes us a stronger community if we can get involved,” Bravo said.
There will also be a party for the children at the Hosea House on Saturday afternoon complete with cookies, punch and an appearance by Santa.
You can donate to the Hosea House’s Giving Tuesday campaign here.
