Today is Black Friday, but you can rethink gift-giving as a charitable endeavor.

Are you shopping for Black Friday deals today? Sara Rubin here, reporting that I am not—I’d much rather wait around until tomorrow for Small Business Saturday, participating in an act of resistance to the big box deals and instead shopping at local brick-and-mortar establishments, talking face-to-face to local vendors about gift ideas. It means I get to make holiday shopping into an act of building community, not simply an act of commerce. 

But this year in particular I’m thinking even more broadly about how to give gifts that feel like they are building up community. As people ask me what I want this year, I am finding it hard to answer. While so many institutions of helping people meet their most essential needs are under attack from the federal government, most of what I want feels frivolous. 

So one suggestion is to give charitable donations to help those institutions serve people who truly need things, rather than simply want them. 

I got the idea from Dorothy’s Place, a nonprofit in Salinas that this year launched a holiday gift catalog. For $3.66, you can give the gift of a warm meal to somebody who needs one, or for $128, a week of warm meals to five people. For $20, you can give a week of bus passes to a person, or for $216, a support group for eight people focusing on meeting mental health challenges that often accompany homelessness. 

It’s a beautiful idea, tapping into the spirit of gift giving in this season, inviting us to give gifts even to our neighbors who we may never meet. 

Monterey County Gives! is a year-end fundraising campaign in which the Weekly is a partner, and you might also consider donating through Gives! in someone’s honor. It’s a way to give a gift of recognition, in any dollar amount, to an organization doing work that might resonate with a gift recipient—if they love birds, consider supporting the Monterey Audubon Society or Ventana Wildlife Society, or if they love theater, consider donating to Ariel Theatrical, PacRep or New Canon and so on. 

Of course, old-fashioned gift-giving helps keep dollars in our communities, if we choose to shop local. If you’re looking for ideas of gifts that can be wrapped and go under the Christmas tree, the Weekly publishes a local gift guide each week at this time of year. (Look for more through Dec. 18.) 

If you prefer to give or receive anti-gifts—charitable donations, experiences and so on—I’d love to hear from you. Happy official start to the holiday season, however you’re shopping (or not) this year.