A Fargo Mom’s Guide to Giving Hearts Day
As a local mom, I am familiar with Giving Hearts Day and have even donated to organizations who participated in this great event. In 2024, Fargo Mom’s Guide to Giving Hearts Day tell you about all the ways to get involved in 2024!
This year Giving Hearts Day is on February 8th. There are many ways to give and teach our children about community involvement and giving outside of dollar donations. Get started here to learn more about ways to get involved as a community member, or as a family!
Volunteer
What are you or your children interested in or passionate about in the community? Maybe your high schooler has service hours or is looking to explore careers in non-profit work? Learn about non-profits who need support through volunteers and schedule sometime to stop in and support their work on Giving Hearts Day!
Donate Goods
Check out charities that accept donated goods and gather up a box to deliver. Maybe your child is passionate about animals and would enjoy selecting some special toys for an animal in need? Perhaps that box of donations that has been taking up space this winter, could find a new home at an organization that can use the goods immediately?
Regardless of your abilities or passion, there is something for everyone in our community to support Giving Hearts Day! Want to learn more about places to support this year? This guide can help!
Support Moms, Babies & Families
Down Home: This non-profit helps support families coming out of homelessness by furnishing their apartment and making it a true home for them to find comfort, dignity, stability, and connection.
Haven: A non-profit organization dedicated to providing hope, healing, and support to parents who have endured the tremendous loss of a child.
Jeremiah Program Fargo Moorhead: The Jeremiah Program prepares determined single mothers to succeed in the workforce. They also help ready their children to succeed in school and reduce their dependence on public assistance.
Ronald McDonald House Charities of the Red River Valley: Keeps families together, minimizes the financial burden of medical care, and provides the comfort of home while children are receiving medical care.
YWCA of Cass Clay: A place for women and children to turn as they escape violence, homelessness, and crisis. The YWCA provides safety, warmth, and hope to women and empowers them to break the cycle of poverty and violence.
Birthright: Provides support and urgent response to women during and after pregnancy to reduce barriers and gaps in care, essential supplies, and community resources to ensure both moms and babies needs are met in our communities.
Care SEATS: Care SEATS was established in 2020 as part of a FMWF Chamber Community effort to provide quality car seats to families in need. This initiative runs as a voucher program through the funds from various donors.
Closing the Hunger Gap
Great Plains Food Bank: Works to end hunger in North Dakota and western Minnesota through community partnerships. And each year near 40 percent of those served by Great Plains Food Bank are children.
Heart-N-Soul Community Cafe: This non-profit is committed to addressing food insecurities and building communities. All are welcome to eat, no matter their economic status.
Emergency Food Pantry: A food distribution program whose mission is to provide referred families and individuals facing emergency situations with a cart of healthy food.
Support Local Sports
Cullen Children’s Fund: Provides financial assistance to individual kids as well as children’s healthcare organizations within the Fargo-Moorhead and surrounding areas. Matt Cullen, a NHL player and Moorhead native and his wife Bridget started the Cullen Children’s Foundation in 2004. Past gifts have supported “Cully’s Cabin” at Sanford Children’s and a remodel of the Essentia Health NICU.
Fargo Youth Hockey Association: Provides the youth of Fargo with the opportunity to learn the fundamentals of hockey. Participants learn sportsmanship and teamwork, develop a sense of responsibility and learn to compete within a set of established rules. Players also to learn to accept the decisions of authorized officials and to develop sound minds and bodies.
Special Olympics of North Dakota: Special Olympics offers children and adults with intellectual disabilities year-round training and competition in Olympic-type summer and winter sports. They offer sports all year round with weekly practices, periodic games, and annual tournaments.
Support Local Children
Boys & Girls Club of the Red River Valley: Provides a safe, caring, and fun environment for kids to learn, grow, and prepare for a bright future.
Boy Scouts: It is the mission of the Northern Lights Council, Boy Scouts of America, to prepare young people to be successful over their lifetime by teaching practical life skills instilling in them the values of the Scout Oath.
BIO Girls: BIO Girls improves self-esteem of adolescent girls through empowerment of self and service to others. Girls identify inner strengths, demonstrate accountability, set goals and work towards goal attainment as well as serve others.
Girl Scouts Dakota Horizon: Girl Scouts of all backgrounds and abilities can be unapologetically themselves. They help young girls discover their strengths and rise to meet new challenges. Girl Scouts is the preeminent leadership development organization for girls and young women where they provide every girl a chance to do something amazing.
Youthworks: Helps homeless, runaway, trafficked, and struggling youth in North Dakota. They help ensure all youth have a safe place to belong and be heard
Box Of Balloons: Provides customized birthday boxes with all the supplies to celebrates children’s birthdays. Their goal is to ensure each child is celebrated on their special day and caregivers/parents feel dignified and supported to ensure their child has a fun celebration.
Support Children with Functional Needs
Anne Carlsen Center: Their mission is the make the world a more inclusive place where independence is a gift to all. ACC provide support services to children and adults with support needs to help them gain and maintain independence and live fulfilling lives.
Haley’s Hope: Haley’s Hope is an organization dedicated to changing the way people recognize and understand the way those with dyslexia learn. HOPE is the foundation of their mission.
Gigi’s Playhouse: This non-profit’s mission is to change the way the world views Down syndrome. Their goal is to send a global message of acceptance for all through educational enrichment opportunities.
North Dakota Autism Center, Inc.: Supporting individuals on the Autism Spectrum and their families to empower and enrich their lives.
Support the Environment
HERO (Healthcare Equipment Recycling Organization): Collects and distributes donated healthcare supplies to those in need locally and globally at low or no-cost. Therefore, their approach to recycling helps customers to remain safe and independent in their homes during medical recovery and aging.
Audubon Dakota: Audubon Dakota aims to connect with communities throughout North and South Dakota. They focus on the importance of protecting and restoring native habitats for birds. They create those connections through our Urban Woods and Prairies Initiative and through their Working Lands programs.
Support Animals
There are so many animal shelters that need our help to protect and save animals. Homeward Animal Shelter, 4 Luv of Dog Rescue, Cats Cradle Shelter, Inc., and Diamond in the Ruff Pet Rescue are all local pet rescues in the F/M area.
Support Farmers
Farm Rescue: We probably all know at least one farmer and if you do, you know how unforgiving farming can be. Farm Rescue offers planting and harvesting assistance to farm families who have experienced a major injury, illness, or natural disaster.
North Dakota Farm Bureau Foundation: Gives the next generation a chance to continue strengthening and promoting agriculture in North Dakota. They fund youth scholarships, research, and programs that teach students about farming and where their food comes from.
It takes a village
As you can see, there are so many charities and so many ways to support the local and regional area. Let’s show them some love this Giving Hearts Day February 8th!
