Giving Tuesday has helped local charities and nonprofit organization for several years. NewsChannel 5 put the spotlight on several organizations allowing people to help their fellow man.
For an additional $1 a month on your NES bill, you can help a deserving family turn on their heat or water.
NeedLink Nashville is partnering with the Nashville Electric Service to help families in need.
Jann Seymour said, "So you think that a dollar is just a little but but it probably adds up to probably more than $125,000 a year and every bit of that we are able to put directly to help people whose power may otherwise be turned off."
Executive Director Jann Seymour said they have three employees who work with nearly 5,000 people in the Nashville area.
Seymour said, "We were working with a lady and her gas had been turned off all summer long, she was older and she hadn't had the money to pay the high bill at the end of the year and she had been taking buckets of water upstairs to take a bath. When she needed to wash her face she was putting a rag in the microwave to warm it up."
She said donations help them help others.
Seymour said, "Sometimes when you're living paycheck to paycheck and rent is as high as it is right now, even a car repair can be the difference between being able to pay your light bill one month and not being able to."
Anyone can sign up on the NES website or call 615-736-6900 for more information.
Down the street is Project 615 in the Nation's neighborhood. This holiday season they are selling t-shirts.
100 percent of the proceeds from the "Made to Change the World" shirts will go to People Loving Nashville, a non-profit that helps the homeless.
Carrie Clemens said, "What they do is every Monday night they make meals and gather clothing, and they go down to War Memorial Auditorium and they serve those in need. Those who are homeless, those who are hungry on the streets of Nashville."
The shirts can be bought on their website.
Clemens said, "I think we've sold hundreds and the sky is the limit, we want to give as much as we possibly can to their cause because it is so worthy because everyone deserves love and everyone deserves comfort and food and to know that they are a part of our community that we see them and want to help them."
So as you make your list and check it twice, you may want to think about the people who won't be receiving a present this holiday season.
Clemens said, "I think it makes a great gift and it's a great reminder that we are all capable of changing the world."
Thistle Farms has also become staple in the Nashville and Davidson County community. Victims of abuse and sex trafficking may feel like they don't have a way out. But here in town there's a non-profit that's rescuing women from these unimaginable situations.
Thistle Farms recently opened this newly renovated café.
They're raising money to get more sex trafficking survivors into safe housing. Dorris Walker said, "When I think about my time on the streets it was 26 long miserable years and I thought I was going die out there. So if it had not been for this community, they actually took me where I was in life, and they took me in, and loved me back to life."
Walker was rescued and placed into a safe home operated by Thistle Farms. Now, she has a full time job with them.
Walker said, "To get up, and come to work, and do the next right thing, so this program gives me my life back. And my position as event coordinator I get to talk to people and ask if we can come out and bring a program, come out and bring products and I feel as though I'm giving back in a sense to the very people who help me."
Inside their new warehouse, survivors are packing products with care.
Walker said, "And this is amazing, this is where all the magic happens. This is where the women make the products with love. The same women that were on the street get their lives back, and they come here and they work and they do the hand poured candles, they mix all the products together, it is as good for the body as it for the earth."
This operation wouldn't be possible if it weren't for donations from the community.
If you stop by their retail store in West Nashville you can buy lotions, soaps, and other products.
To donate to Thistle Farms you can visit Give Love Here.
