FLX Gives: The Southern Finger Lakes Gets a Day of Giving

My dog has a wide range of talents she may choose to display if she feels like it. Tonight, she doesn’t feel like it. Instead, she’s staring at me from her favorite spot next to the fireplace, satisfied that she decimated a brand new toy in record time. As she lays surrounded by the stuffing of a recently-stuffed animal, I can’t help but feel gratitude toward the Chemung County SPCA for making this scene possible.

Throughout the Southern Finger Lakes, nonprofit organizations make an exceptional difference in our lives every day. Whether it’s a visit to the Rockwell Museum or a performance by the Orchestra of the Southern Finger Lakes at the Clemens Center, we’re surrounded by cultural opportunities in every direction. Living here would be very difficult for working families without “My Place” in Montour Falls or the Corning Children’s Center. And how could smaller communities compete without free library services in places like Pulteney or Watkins Glen?

As essential as these organizations are to the region, every nonprofit faces its own fundraising challenges. This year, in addition to everything they already do to help, the Community Foundation of Elmira-Corning and the Finger Lakes created a day of giving to support nonprofit fundraising.

FLX Gives will take place ALL DAY on Friday, November 15 – from midnight to 11:59pm. This is our chance as donors, supporters, admirers, and fans to pull together and show how much we love our nonprofit organizations. Give $1 here, $5 there, $15 somewhere else – we already know every little bit helps, and in this case, the number of donations also helps. For example, the organization that gets the greatest number of donors (not the greatest amount of money) before 6am wins an additional $500. A whole bunch of similar prizes can be found on the FLX Gives prize page.

If you want to be a fundraising champion for a particular organization, you can do that, too. Go the website before November 15 and choose the nonprofit you wish to support. If they aren’t already registered for FLX Gives, encourage them to sign up right away! I’m proud to be a fundraising champion for Heritage Village and the Benjamin Patterson Inn, all part of the Corning Painted Post Historical Society.

Lastly, if you’re unable to donate this year, you can still show your appreciation for our region’s nonprofit organizations by sharing the FLX Gives website on social media. You can even write the name of your favorite nonprofit participating in FLX Gives in the “comments” section of a designated post on the Community Foundation of Elmira-Corning and the Finger Lakes Facebook page; the nonprofit that has the most mentions will win $500!

As I prepare to clean up a pile of stuffed animal filling, I’m excited to see all the ways in which our community pulls together for FLX Gives. If we make it possible for one more animal to lay comfortably by the fire, for one more child to experience a fun show or a warm meal, it will all be worth it. 

So let’s go!