Each year around Valentine’s Day the Midwest region celebrates Giving Hearts Day, a 24-hour fundraising event for local charities. Charities all around North Dakota and Minnesota participate in the event which has raised $164 million since its founding in 2008. This year Giving Hearts Day took place on February 9th and raised an astonishing $26.1 million for charities. Around 90,000 thousand donations were made by a total of 41,000 donors and 1,717 people also made pledges to volunteer in their community.  

Giving Hearts Day is put on by the Dakota Medical Foundation, a nonprofit organization that hosts a variety of similar programs and education initiatives in the community. Their mission is to “positively impact health” in the region. The event is co-hosted by Impact Learning Co. and the Alex Stern Family Foundation. The fundraiser is hosted every year around Valentine’s Day to encourage people to not only show love to the people closest to them, but to their community as well. According to their website, Giving Hearts Day is the longest-running giving day in the country. This impressive display of community generosity continues to positively impact charities throughout the region.  

Giving Hearts Day brings attention to local charities that work tirelessly to support their cause. A YouTube livestream hosted by the organizers on February 9th interviewed different charities every hour about their mission and how they support the community. The Giving Hearts Day website also showcases different charities, highlighting their mission statements and giving a description of what they do. The area or areas the charity serves are also mentioned as well as what areas of need they focus on. The website displays charity needs, emphasizing whether the charity is accepting goods or needs volunteers as well as monetary donations. Donors can filter charities by a variety of things such as organization type, donation type, and location, making it easy for them to give to causes close to their hearts. While Giving Hearts Day is a once-a-year, 24-hour fundraising event, the website is open year-round and accepts donations for all participating charities. 

For more information or to donate to a charity, visit https://app.givingheartsday.org/ .

Gabrielle Bossart is a Dakota Student Section Editor. She can be reached at [email protected].