In response to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the organizers for the annual #GivingTuesday charity effort, typically held the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, have announced an emergency #GivingTuesdayNow on May 5. Promo companies have responded by establishing giveback drives and helping clients be a force for good.

Sharon Hollar, promotional products specialist at Woodstock, VA-based The Kirkland Image, part of Top 40 distributor Kaeser & Blair (asi/238600), says her local community service organization, ShenCoCares in the Shenandoah Valley, will be giving out care packages to senior citizens in their houses and nursing homes. The bags, with the ShenCoCares and Kirkland Image logos, will contain donated products from local businesses, like hand soap, sanitizer, lotion, tissues, masks and gloves, along with large-print word search books, jigsaw puzzles, socks with bottom grips, greeting cards for family and friends, and gift cards for takeout restaurants, all to make isolation a little more bearable.

In Keego Harbor, MI, Emma Zerkel, owner of Winning Imprints and Custom Trophies (asi/361975), has encouraged the community to rally around one of her local clients hit hard by the closures. The Gary Burnstein Health Clinic, which normally specializes in caring for especially vulnerable community members, has had to close its doors, leaving patients without a place to go for care. In time for #GivingTuesdayNow, Zerkel and her team designed branded T-shirts to help raise funds for the clinic.

“It’s a few miles from our office,” says Zerkel, “so we feel great about directly helping our community.”

Winning Imprints and Custom Trophies will sell these T-shirts to benefit a critical healthcare facility affected by the coronavirus.

House of Hunter in Spokane, WA, has asked its team to choose nonprofits to which, on May 5, the company will donate 1.5% of its gross Q1 income in matching funds from employees. “We like to make this a social event and post our team’s donations in real time,” says Mitsy Hunter, the founder and principal. “It’s super fun to see what everyone’s passionate about. Even with the universal downturn, we feel deeply that we have a responsibility to our local, national and international families to help where we can.”

Blink Marketing, Inc. (asi/141424) in Franklin, TN, has raised $5,000, in part from selling its “Nashville Strong” and “Tennessee Strong” hats, to The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee, which was already contending with tornado relief demand before the pandemic. CCS: Marketing and Technology (asi/350474) in Lawrenceville, GA, has put together a business resource page for education and non-profit clients, while Unique Image, Inc. in Northridge, CA, plans to donate to the ALO Cultural Foundation, which works to empower vulnerable women and children in the Middle East.

Meanwhile, Firespring, a B Corp distributor in Lincoln, NE, partnered with Nonprofit Hub and its Do More Good corporate social responsibility outreach division to launch the Nonprofit Matching-Fund Initiative. Registered nonprofits can participate for free and will receive matching funds from the program on May 5. Donors can contribute to national and state-level pools for all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

“Donors are more likely to donate when there’s a match fund involved,” says Jay Wilkinson, CEO of Firespring. “We [want] to help nonprofits fully leverage the #GivingTuesdayNow movement to make an even greater impact.”