The annual day to support our local community is nearly here. 

Giving Tuesday is a global movement dedicated to donating your time or money to local non-profit organizations, which is in stark contrast to Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Sarah Parker, executive director of the Glenbow Ranch Park Foundation says they've seen a massive increase in park users since COVID-19 began. 

"Just to give you an idea of how many more people are visiting Glenbow Ranch Provincial Park, in 2019 between April and Halloween we saw about 21,000 visitors and for that same time period in 2020, we've seen almost 60,000."

She says "It's a huge increase and so it makes our foundations job even more important and besides educational programming and visitor services one of the big things that we do at our park is vegetation management, with support from Alberta Parks. That's just making sure that our grasslands are as healthy as can be, or our trails are as healthy as can be."

Parker says right now they're in dire need of some new wheels to get around the park. 

"One of our big needs is a side-by-side, anyone who's been to our park knows that it's quite hilly and we have a decade-old golf cart that we've been trying to use, which just isn't working."

They've set up a Giving Tuesday campaign.

"People can donate online, at the park on Dec. 1 and it doesn't have to be that day, you can donate before or after. Just click on the Giving Tuesday campaign link on our website."

Parker says "It goes with the whole notion of shopping local, donating local. So that's something really important and we hope that all of these new visitors to the park jump on board in supporting us in the work we do."