Thousands open wallets and hearts to help Waterbury-area nonprofits

The response from people in Connecticut has been overwhelming. Beginning at 7:00 a.m. on Tuesday and lasting through 7:00 p.m. on Wednesday, the Connecticut Community Foundation, based in Waterbury, is holding its annual Give Local Day of Giving. It's a brief, but effective online campaign to encourage people to donate money to support more than 260 nonprofits that help out communities in the Greater Waterbury area and Litchfield Hills. Since 2013, the Greater Waterbury Litchfield HIlls Give Local Day has raised $5.8 million for various nonprofits. "I think there are just a lot of really, really generous people in this area who realize without the work that these nonprofits do, this isn't as good a place to live," said Julie Loughran, President and CEO of the Connecticut Community Foundation. "This is an opportunity, through Give Local, to shine a light on the nonprofit organizations that work every single day of the year to give back in the community," Loughran said. The reason why so much money has been raised is because the foundation is able to provide bonus money throughout the donation period as encouragement for each nonprofit to keep those donations coming in. For instance, there's prize money for different categories like most number of donors in a given hour or most donors overall.