Erie Gives is kicking off year 15 with much to celebrate.  They've raised over 66.3-million-dollars for local nonprofits since 2011 -- 9.7-million last year alone.

The message is to invite the community to get ready to support nonprofits again on Tuesday, August 12.  Erin Fessler-VP of Marketing & Community and Government Relations said, "Leading up to Erie Gives, we recommend that donors go look at the website, see which nonprofit or cause you want to support.  You can give online at eriegives.org, you can write a check and drop it off at our offices or you can use your required minimum distribution from your IRA, we'd like those or stock gifts in our office by August 5th."

This year 538 nonprofit organizations are registered to receive donations.  Maria House Project is one organization that counts on the support. Joe Tarquinio, Spiritual Director of Maria House Project said,  "Erie Gives gives us over 1/3 of our budget and because of that we're able to continue to serve men who are in recovery, coming out of prison or homelessness, some of them have mental health problems."

And 39 nonprofits are new to Erie Gives.  Kyrie Laubenthal just registered her organization that has a mission of keeping pets with their owners.  "I'm very excited, my nonprofit's name is the Crate Escape Crisis Comfort. We give free pet care to those facing a temporary hardship such as domestic violence cases, displacement, mental health, drug rehab or hospitalization."

And community partners like Wabtec and Erie Insurance make a big impact. Jenny Weigold Geertson/Dir. Community Outreach  at Erie Insurance said, "Because we're celebrating our 100th anniversary, we're encouraging our employees as we always do to give where they live, but starting August 1 and running through November 11 we're having a double match campaign where each employee contribution is matched by the company at 2 for 1.

The collective support of major partners adds up to more than $634,000 in a bonus bucks matching pool.  Those funds will be distributed among all the nonprofits, but this year a portion of the proceeds will be used to eliminate fees. Karen Bilowith/President and CEO of the Erie Community Foundation said "Erie gives will have no fees for the donors and that means no platform fee which is the fee that supports the website, or credit card fees, we're using our bonus bucks pool which is bigger than ever this year."

And Bilowith hopes community donations will be bigger than ever too, possibly topping the $10-million-dollar mark.

And by the way, there are matching pools in surrounding communities too.  

NORTH EAST $30,000

CORRY $25,000

UNION CITY $15,000

FINDLEY LAKE $5,000