Charliese Brown Lewis
Celebrating their 10th anniversary and a decade of fundraising in Kentucky and Indiana, the annual Give for Good campaign, organized by the Community Foundation of Louisville, makes its return next month. Plan to be part of it.
Written by Rana Alsoufi | Provided photo
Give for Good is an online giving day event that aims to support local organizations through funding and increased awareness. In the past ten years, the campaign has successfully raised over $50.6 million for local organizations in eight counties in the Kentuckiana region, providing support to all kinds of nonprofit organizations, from churches, to educational institutions, to governmental units, and so much more.
Ron Gallo, the president and CEO of the Community Foundation of Louisville, encourages the community to participate in this year’s Give for Good campaign on Thursday, September 14, “to resolve the challenges and social ills in our community,” and to show support for the various local organizations in Kentuckiana who make up its diverse communities.
Give for Good raised over $8 million in 2022 for over 500 participating organizations, contributing to the campaign’s mission of championing community and mobilizing change.
Through the generosity of several partners, eligible organizations will also be able to earn additional cash prizes this Give for Good day from a pool of hundreds of thousands of dollars that have already been donated. Donations will have the chance to be randomly boosted by $1,000 or matched dollar-for-dollar through this prize pool, according to the Give for Good website.
Anyone interested in participating in Give for Good this year is able to make a minimum donation of $10 to their participating organization of choice through the Give for Good website at www.giveforgood.org on September 14. Donors can select between making a one-time payment or a recurring monthly payment.
Follow along with the Give for Good campaign and the participating organizations through the hashtag #GiveForGoodLou on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.
Give for Good Spotlight: Louisville Literary Arts
One of the hundreds of recipients of Give for Good funding, LLA offers support and programming to local writers and readers– especially from underserved areas.
Officially established in 2010 by poets Erin Keane and Lynnell Edwards, Louisville Literary Arts (LLA) is a nonprofit organization that aims to support and encourage writers and readers in the Metro Louisville area by providing access to the necessary resources and opportunities, especially to underserved communities. They’ve been beneficiaries of the Give for Good campaign for the last XX years and have used the support to grow their reach.
“Our mission for Louisville Literary Arts is really to create a safe, inclusive and accessible community that inspires, encourages, educates and supports writers and readers at all levels and genres,” said Charliese Brown Lewis, executive director for LLA. “So in other words, wherever you are, we will meet you at your skill level.”
LLA is committed to serving the literary community of Louisville in various ways, including the organization of free and low-cost events, such as the nationally-recognized InKY Reading Series, which marked the beginning of the LLA in 2004. The InKY Reading Series highlights both locally- and nationally-known voices in the literary industry, providing them a platform to showcase their work on a larger scale.
The organization also works to support writers in the community through workshops and funding, hosting meet-ups every third Wednesday of the month for writers to come together and to share their work and hone their skills in a safe and supportive environment. LLA also hosts a summer writing retreat and the Writer’s Block Festival, a day-long event that hosts guest speakers, panel discussions, open mic readings and other workshops for writers, readers and educators to participate in.
“You don’t have to have a degree in writing to be a writer, and so we want to encourage diverse writers to come to the table if you have a story to tell,” Lewis said. “We want to help you with your storytelling and your creative expression, and we’ll support you with the literary programming you need to become whoever you want to be as a writer.”
All donations gifted to LLA raised through Give for Good will be used to make sure the organization can continue to offer free and low-cost resources and opportunities to the literary community in Louisville, as well as to provide fair compensation to the organization’s instructors and featured writers. Donors can choose between four donation levels ranging from $35-$250, each of them supporting different LLA endeavors; for $35, donors can contribute toward a student workshop scholarship that will provide access to LLA’s services to someone who may not have been able to afford it otherwise, and for $250, donors can become an official sponsor of the annual Writer’s Block Festival. Donors can also choose to support LLA by gifting their own amount.
“Particularly in the literary arts, it is so challenging to come by grant money and funds to promote the authors across the state of Kentucky,” Lewis said. “We really, truly believe that literary artists have put the work into their writing and it is very important for them to actually receive some type of monetary benefit for those things.”
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Show your support:
Anyone interested in supporting Louisville Literary Arts through Give for Good can visit their donation page at GiveForGoodLouisville.org. More information about LLA is available on their website at LouisvilleLiteraryArts.org.
