DONATING TO KIDS IS ALWAYS IN SEASON

Donating to Youth: A Message to Parents and Coaches

By Doug Abrams

 With the season’s first snowflakes about to fall and Thanksgiving around the corner, the time is fast approaching when many youth-sports parents and coaches will consider making one or more charitable donations before the federal and state tax year closes on December 31.

These considerations depend, of course, on the potential donor’s financial circumstances and family obligations. Many adults receive more charitable solicitations than they can satisfy, and many families must carefully manage the household budget these days.

Inside and outside of sports, however, donations from parents and coaches can make a profound difference for worthwhile tax-exempt organizations that serve less fortunate youth and their families. This column surveys these organizations.

Some Traditional Youth-Oriented Charities

Some sorts of local and national sports-related causes stand out year after year as worthy recipients of private donations to youth in need. At the local level, for example, private youth sports associations, public school districts, or public parks and recreation departments may welcome financial support or new or used playing equipment. These donations can help financially distressed families afford to enroll their children in sports, and can enhance the quality of sports participation by all children.

Beyond localities, national sports governing bodies may maintain charitable initiatives devoted to equal opportunity for under-served populations. Because hockey is my sport, the USA Hockey Foundation, maintained by USA Hockey, comes immediately to mind.

Outside the sports realm, a wide array of community-based organizations such as ones affiliated with United Way or the community chest accept donations that advance youth well-being.  

Children’s hospitals typically accept gifts for research, equipment, and other direct medical enhancements. These hospitals also accept donations to create or maintain programs that provide toys, games, parties, and similar emotional supports to help make sick or injured children’s hospital stays more bearable. One such program is Happiness For Health, which I endowed at the University of Missouri Children’s Hospital in 2001 with royalties from the books I have written.

These examples are suggestive, and not exhaustive, of opportunities that await parents and coaches who are motivated to help improve children’s lives before and during the Holiday Season. With sufficient time to plan, adults can make sound decisions about how to make their charitable dollars work the greatest good inside or outside youth sports.

COVID-19 and the Continued Spotlight on Food Banks and Food Pantries

Although the sorts of organizations and initiatives that serve needy children tend to create familiar patterns from year to year, the landscape has changed dramatically since early 2020 with the onset and persistence of the COVID-19 pandemic.

On Rick Wolff’s blog last year, I urged parents and coaches to help counter the pandemic’s ill effects by donating to a local food bank or food pantry that feeds hungry families and their children. I repeat the message here.

Uncomfortably high child hunger rates have posed a national dilemma for decades. COVID-19, however, immediately threatened parental unemployment, home and apartment evictions, and other personal adversities that depleted the incomes and savings of families who had always played by the rules and had done nothing wrong. Children who fell into unexpected poverty struggled with hunger despite government nutrition programs, school meals, and help from private providers. Some of these hungry children were playing sports, and many were not. But children who played sports held no monopoly on help from parents and coaches who were fortunate enough to avoid dire circumstances. Hungry children are hungry children.

Some promising COVID signs dot the horizon today, but food banks and food pantries continue to grapple with serious pediatric need. On the promising side of the ledger, the Urban Institute reports that “household food insecurity fell by nearly 30 percent between spring 2020 and 2021.”  

In April, 2021, however, the Institute underscored the continued pressing need: “As the COVID-19 pandemic wears on, many families with young children have faced and continue to experience an overwhelming amount of material and economic hardship and food insecurity. This not only creates distress in the short term but has significant implications for children’s longer-term well-being and development. Although data may show a recovering economy and decreases in unemployment, stories from parents with young children highlight how hardship endures because of instability in work hours, disruptions to child care, and barriers to food access.”

With a Google search, readers can quickly find the name and address of the local food bank or food pantry.

Filling Buckets

“. . . But would my $25 charitable donation really matter? Or would it simply be a drop in the bucket?”

“Every dollar makes a difference,” says former New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, “and that’s true whether it’s Warren Buffett’s remarkable $31 billion pledge to the Gates Foundation, or my late father’s $25 check to the NAACP.”

In his fable, The Lion and the Mouse more than two thousand years ago, Aesop focused primarily on the impact of giving on recipients: Aesop’s moral?: “No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.”

In our own times, poet Maya Angelou reminded us that whatever the size, a charitable donation also pays the donor rich dividends: “Among its other benefits, giving liberates the soul of the giver.”

The bottom line? Buckets that collect seemingly small donations can fill to the brim and serve their intended purposes. Regardless of the size of the gift, the donor and the recipient each prospers.

Sources:  University of Missouri Children’s Hospital, Happiness For Health Endowment, https://www.muhealth.org/giving/how-your-gift-helps/specific-needs-at-childrens-hospital; Urban Institute, Elaine Waxman et al., Food Insecurity Has Improved Since 2020, but the Work Isn’t Done Yet (Urban Inst. June 7, 2021); Urban Institute, Elaine Waxman & Poonam Gupta, Stories of Hardship From Families With Young Children as the COVID-19 Pandemic Persists Urban Inst. Apr. 27, 2021); PlannedGiving.com, https://plannedgiving.com/resources/wise-sayings-giving-quotes-on-philanthropy/# (quoting Bloomberg and Angelou); Aesop, The Lion and the Mouse, Aesop’s Fables: A Classic Illustrated Edition, p. 38 (1990).