5 Princeton Area Nonprofits To Support This Holiday Season

PRINCETON, NJ — If you’re like many of your Princeton 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 Princeton area.

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

1. Share My Meals: Founded in January 2020, Share My Meals is a nonprofit organization based in Princeton, New Jersey, and active across New Jersey, dedicated to addressing food insecurity and the environmental impact of food waste by recovering and delivering healthy prepared meals to local communities.
2. Housing Initiatives of Princeton: Founded in 2001, HIP helps low-income working families to stay and thrive in the community through generous support from businesses, individuals, partner congregations, agencies, and foundations. They provide transitional housing coupled with supportive services and temporary rental assistance – including arrears, first month’s rent or security deposit – to enable low-income families to retain existing housing or acquire affordable housing. They work to raise awareness of insufficient housing options and challenges facing the working poor.
3. Center at 353: Formerly Trinity Counseling Services, Center at 353 provides mental health services to the community through evidence-based clinical practice and education.
4. Bayard Rustin Center for Social Justice: The Bayard Rustin Center for Social Justice is a dedicated Queer safe- space, community activist hub, and educational bridge for LGBTQIA youth, intersectional families, and all marginalized people across the spectrum, dedicated to preserving the life and legacy of Bayard Rustin by offering innovative all- inclusive support initiatives, powerful programs, and events hosted at their Princeton New Jersey headquarters and at various partner centers across the nation connecting our beautifully diverse communities in ways as inspirational as they are exponential.
5. Homeworks, Trenton: Homeworks was founded in 2016 and is a nonprofit operating a free, after-school residential program for marginalized high school girls that provides academic and identity-driven leadership enrichment to supplement public schools and develop community leaders. HomeWorks inspires and equips young women from marginalized communities to achieve their potential and positively transform the world around them by providing a supportive and educational residential environment.

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