5 Berkeley Nonprofits To Support This Holiday Season

BERKELEY, NJ — If you’re like many of your Berkeley 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 Berkeley area.

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

1. The Redondo Foundation: Central Regional special education teacher Holly Nitto helps her fiancé, Don Redondo, with this nonprofit that helps veterans with PTSD, traumatic brain injuries and suicidal tendencies. Redondo is an army infantry combat medic who served in Iraq and struggled when he came home. Now, this foundation helps veterans with post-traumatic growth.
2. The Kivu Project: Dan Torsiello, another Central Regional teacher, launched this nonprofit after traveling to the Democratic Republic of the Congo and seeing what they needed there. The Kivu Project has built a school and refugee camp to help out the families there.
3. Friends of the Berkeley Library: The friends support the local library branch by providing programming and events for all to enjoy.
4. Berkeley Township Underwater Search and Rescue: The dive team has been helping out Berkeley's waterways since 1976. Their work includes the "Stop the Sting" operation, helping to decrease the bay nettle population, training, community outreach and more.
5. Carly Fetzer Queen of Hearts Foundation: Carly was born with a congenital heart defect called Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome and sadly died at 18 from complications. To keep the Bayville girl's memory alive, her family launched this foundation to fund research and help families in need.