5 UWS Nonprofits To Support This Holiday Season

UPPER WEST SIDE, NY — If you’re like many of your 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 on the Upper West Side – and beyond.

Patch reached out to several longtime local elected officials who shared a few of their favorite local organizations.

Congressman Jerry Nadler has a longstanding association with Goddard Riverside, a spokesperson said. A community organization on Columbus Avenue near West 88th Street that offers programs for all ages – from children to seniors – Goddard helps more than 20,000 people “achieve their goals” annually, according to its website.

A spokesperson for Council Member Gale Brewer, who has long represented the Upper West Side in city government, also mentioned a few local organizations to consider.

Project Rousseau primarily assists migrants and asylum seekers, but also works with Native American youth and supports first-generation low-income college students.

The St. Paul & St. Andrew United Methodist Church, at West 86th Street near West End Avenue, is also involved in supporting asylum seekers and refugees. But that’s not all, and you can learn more about its service work here.

DOROT, on West 85th Street near Amsterdam Avenue, serves thousands of seniors annually.

And finally, both Brewer and Council Member Shaun Abreu named the West Side Campaign Against Hunger, which “distributes more than 5 million pounds of healthy food from a 13,000-square-foot warehouse and community sites across NYC,” according to its website.

Options abound, West Siders! Open up those wallets.