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We need your help

With Christmas approaching, what better time is there to consider also turning your thoughts to supporting local nonprofit agencies and services that care for those in need not only during the holiday season, but year round.

The Pleasanton Weekly 2012 Holiday Fund offers that opportunity. The contributions you provide will go to Axis Community Health, Open Heart Kitchen, Pleasanton Partnerships in Education (PPIE) Foundation, Valley Humane Society and ValleyCare Health System, as well as to Hope Hospice, Pleasanton Cultural Arts Council, REACH, Sandra J Wing Therapies and Senior Support Services of the Tri-Valley.

This year we are partnering with Silicon Valley Community Foundation (SVCF), which will handle all finances related to the Pleasanton Weekly Holiday Fund. That will allow donors to take advantage of a tax deduction for the dollars they contribute through the Foundation's 501(c)(3) status. SVCF and the Pleasanton Weekly will handle all costs of the campaign. That means that every dollar will go directly to the 10 nonprofits with no administrative expenses.

Each of these nonprofits desperately needs a financial boost. Despite a modest economic recovery in the Tri-Valley, these are still-troubling times with unemployment in Alameda County, alone, at more than 8%. Needless to add, the so-called "fiscal cliff" is adding to uncertainties for these nonprofits as well as for all of us. In addition, the agencies we have targeted for assistance have found that they now have many more to serve as well as fewer dollars from their own regular donors who have found themselves at times facing financial, employment and health care challenges and uncertainties.

Last year, when the state of the economy was perhaps even more dire, Pleasanton Weekly readers rallied to the call and contributed $104,000 in direct donations to the Holiday Fund. Help us do it again. Because Silicon Valley Community Foundation is handling the finances of this year's Holiday Fund, donations should be made payable to that organization and sent to:

Pleasanton Weekly Holiday Fund

c/o Silicon Valley Community Foundation

2440 W. El Camino Real, Ste. 300

Mountain View, CA 94040

There is also an opportunity to donate through Pay Pal online at www.siliconvalleycf.org/pleasantonweeklyholidayfund.

All donations will be acknowledged shortly after being received.