While you’re all planning to support local businesses this coming weekend, don’t forget about local charitable causes. While everyone suffers in an economic meltdown, the small, the local and the charitable are the ones that suffer most. While groups like the Downtown Emergency Service Center or 826 Seattle could always use your donations, they really need them now: corporate giving is drying up, local and federal budgets are tightening, and there are plenty of people who would have been happy to give three months ago who won’t be able to now.

“What other suggestions do you have for charitable giving?” you might ask. Well, I do have one more (and for disclosure purposes, yes, I’m volunteering for them). The Capitol Hill Community Council set up Unpaving Paradise as a project to fundraise money for the park-to-be at John and Summit. You may have heard of this potential urban gem, since it has been featured on CHS before.

Even if you haven’t, the pertinent point is this: it’s up to the community (that is you and I, gentle reader) to raise the $158 thousand that Parks couldn’t gather during its budget creation process. Since we the public found out about this budget shortfall shortly before the economic downturn, you can imagine that Unpaving Paradise has had a fairly slow start. However, I remain convinced that there are many people in this fine city that want to make this park happen. Our quest is to find them all.

This is where you (yes, you) can help. If you can, donate. If you think you know someone (or group) who would want to help fundraise to create an amazing local park, bug them until they do. It’s a question of networking, and that is one thing we blogonauts do best.

{For more information on John and Summit park, visit the Unpaving Paradise blog. You can also contact us at [email protected]}