Black Friday is a term that has spread north of the border. In the U.S., it is the Friday after American Thanksgiving and the official retail kickoff to holiday shopping. It started in 1932.
Then along came Cyber Monday in 2005 when people would shop online, followed by Small Business Saturday around 2010 to encourage people to patronize small retailers.
The next evolution was Giving Tuesday in 2012, meant to give the same financial boost to the charitable community that those other three days give to retail.
This year, Giving Tuesday in Langley will come with the announcement that the Weekend FuelBag program has more support.
Three students at three North Langley schools provide bags of food for fellow students who would not otherwise likely eat over the weekend. But the program’s main sponsor is closing.
Now after publicity from the newspaper and other media, new donors have come forward.
“Two major sponsors have come on board to ‘adopt’ five more schools with our Weekend Fuelbag program, meaning we’d be potentially helping a total of 80 middle and high school students in Langley [up from the current 16],” said R.E. Mountain Secondary Grade 12 student Katrina Schulz.
“We may be able to sponsor a ninth school with the donations received from the public too,” she noted. “Our ‘Adopt a School’ model means that a minimum of 10 students each week at a school would receive a fuelbag for every weekend for the rest of the school year and then we’d hold renewal talks early to make sure the program could continue the following school year.”
Check out www.facebook.com/LangleyGives What Can You Do? for more about local initiatives for Giving Tuesday.