By John Kaiser III – Navarro County Gazette
If you just cannot find everything you need on your Christmas list this year by shopping and supporting our wonderful local shops, then smile. AmazonSmile, that is.
Given the daily social media posts about all of your Amazon addictions, I must ask you, are you buying all of your items through smile.amazon.com?
In 2013, Amazon launched the AmazonSmile program where charities could sign up, people could select the charitable organization they wanted, then a small portion of each eligible purchase Amazon would donate to your chosen recipient. Since its inception, the AmazonSmile program has donated over 216 million dollars nationally, and over 230 million worldwide. $236,903,641.58 as of November 2020, to be more exact.
By utilizing this program you can support local non-profits as well as larger ones such as St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Child’s Play, and the ASPCA. Please consider adding one of these local charitable non-profits to your AmazonSmile account and give just by doing what you would normally be doing without any extra cost to you! Here is a list of just a few of the 159 results that pop up when you search for “Corsicana”.
- Corsicana Community Playhouse Inc (this is the Warehouse Living Arts Center)
- Family Peace Project
- United Way of Navarro County Texas
- Corsicana Education Foundation
- Boys and Girls Clubs of Navarro County Texas
- Kerens 4-H
- Hull Creative Arts Foundation
- Corsicana’s Palace Theatre
It is simple to set up. If you are shopping on desktop, just type in smile.amazon.com instead of amazon.com. Click the Account & Lists tab in the top right corner and select “Your AmazonSmile”. Find the charity you want to support and then start shopping. Once your charity is selected, it will be automatically selected every time you log in.
For those that do all their shopping from their smartphones and tablet apps, just open up the app. Tap on the three lines in the top left corner and select AmazonSmile under “Programs and Features” and follow the steps to select your desired charity. Once you have this all set up and turned on, your app will automatically switch to AmazonSmile every time you launch it.
It is quick and easy to set up and a great way to give support, not just now during the holidays, but continually throughout the year and just by doing what you would normally be doing. All it costs you is a few minutes of your time to set up once.
