Willamette Week Give!Guide

This Big Give Day is for all the cool people, which means it’s for everyone. It slaps, it’s awesome, it’s groovy. It’s Big Cool Day, brought to you by some of Portland’s slayingest destinations.

Every donation of $10 or today has multiple chances to win. You’ll find the full scoop/deets/411 on our website (link in bio) but here’s the lowdown:

All donors have two chances to win a prize package featuring hundreds of dollars in gift cards from Atlas Tattoo, Midtown Beer Garden, and Music Millennium.

Are you 35 or under? You have two EXTRA chances to win the same package, plus one last chance to win a $100 gift card to Midtown Beer Garden. This Big Give Day — it’s lit, you might say.

Visit www.giveguide.org to start donating. Every $10 donation is entered to win and there’s no limit. Stay cool, everybody! 😎

Well, it's that time of year again. The end of the year brings the holidays, and also the end of the current year's Give!Guide campaign. We're ready to kick things into gear with a slew of Big Give Days, starting Saturday and ending on 12/30, and hope you are too! 🥳

But before we do, we wanted to share with you another category spotlight. Today's spotlight is shining on the Creative Expression category. Nonprofits in this category create moments creative refuge when the going gets tough. 🎨

"Creative expression is an incredibly powerful tool to imagine better futures and work toward them together — which is why it’s so dangerous when this presidential administration attacks communities' access to it," shares Meg Schenk on behalf of the Creative Expression category. "It can be easy to feel powerless right now. But if there’s one action you take today, I hope it’s donating to an organization below. We need them so every Portlander knows that spark of recognition and belonging. So we can all be a part of something bigger."

Head to the link in our bio to check out the nonprofits in this year's Creative Expression category, and donate while you're there. 💙

We're barreling toward the end of this year's Give!Guide campaign, and we have a lot to look forward to. That includes introducing you to the remaining winners of this year's Skidmore Prize; meet Frances Andonopoulos, founder and director of .

Their journey to founding Sincere Studio was not exactly a straight line. They had lost their job and were receiving unemployment benefits; ironically, this allowed them to transform their long-held hobby into a valuable community service. “Oregon has this program where if you’re on unemployment, you can apply to start your own business and still keep your unemployment benefits," explained Andonopoulos. “So I was like, let me just try, because I honestly don’t know if I’m ever going to have an opportunity like this.”

Sincere Studio is Portland’s first nonprofit community sewing center. Effectively, it's a community sewing space where people from all economic backgrounds could learn to sew. A nonprofit that could serve as both a creative and educational haven, offering classes, hosting meetups, and providing a hub for skill sharing that would foster and strengthen community across economic lines.

Andonopoulos expected that in the first year they’d be lucky to build a small group of eager students. But instead of a slow build, Sincere Studio has been steadily growing since its inception, creating a safe and welcoming space where people of all genders, races, ages, and abilities can learn the basics of sewing — just as intended.

Read Andonopoulos' full Skidmore Prize profile at the link in our bio!

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