5 Barnstable Nonprofits To Support This Holiday Season

BARNSTABLE, MA — If you’re like many of your Barnstable neighbors, you may spend a good part of the holiday season with your credit card in hand buying gifts for family and friends. Coming up soon is a chance to give back to the local community.

Giving Tuesday, which in 2024 falls on Dec. 3, is a day dedicated to supporting nonprofit and community groups. Since 2012, nonprofits worldwide have used the Tuesday after Thanksgiving to galvanize fundraising, rally volunteers and add momentum to their causes.

Maintaining funding is a constant challenge for many nonprofits that fill gaps and meet other needs in the Barnstable area.

Here are five local nonprofits to consider getting behind on Giving Tuesday:

1. Arts Foundation of Cape Cod: The foundation serves as the link between the Cape Cod Arts Community and the Cape's residents and visitors. It is the regional arts agency for Barnstable County and Cape Cod’s only nonprofit arts and culture organization that serves all artists, all art forms and all cultural and historical centers, the foundation says.

2. Barnstable Land Trust: Barnstable Land Trust is a community-supported nonprofit whose mission is to preserve natural resources and special places in Barnstable and nearby areas. Among their recent initiatives, the Land Trust recently published the first town-wide trail guide.

3. Dogs for Better Lives: Falmouth's Dogs for Better Lives helps people on Cape Cod by "providing clients with more safety, independence, and connection to the world around them that they may have lost through hearing loss, an autism diagnosis, or other trauma or disability." To learn more or make a donation, click here.

4. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute: The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is perhaps the most important non-profit organization dedicated to ocean research, exploration and education, and it's located on Cape Cod. Since 1930, WHOI scientists and engineers have laid the groundwork for many of the discoveries that have shaped what we understand about the ocean and its impacts on the planet.

5. Cape Kid Meals: Cape Kid Meals was created to ensure that Cape Cod students who eat free or reduced lunch at school during the week have meals over the weekend. To learn more or make a donation, click here.