2020 has been one hell of a year. Few have scraped through unscathed. As we hit full holiday mode, we are constantly bombarded with sales, deals, and arguments to purchase many, many things. Some of us are struggling to provide what in past years have seemed “normal” for our families as we are affected by the continuing global pandemic.
This year has seen many ups and downs for our household between work, school, family and friends. Something we have found great solace in, is finding ways to enjoy spending time together (as we’ve had a lot of opportunity). While we have had some issues and loss over the last 9 months, we feel very fortunate to be able to continue to make a living through all of this.
We talked as a family about what we would want to do with any support we could muster. Because of Covid, volunteering (especially with two school aged children) is a difficult option. Financial donations were the next obvious choice. When discussing who we wanted to donate to, the boys (with a little helpful guidance) decided it made the most sense to help people who were struggling with the necessities, food and shelter. There are millions of people in the US, and many, many more around the world that have been hit very hard by this pandemic, and as a family, we decided to find a way to try and give a little to some of those families if possible.
We’ve found an organization called Family Promise that focuses on homelessness, primarily for families with children. With a 99.95% overall rating through Charity Navigator, we felt good about donating to an organization that is very transparent, and focuses so much of their received donations toward the actual goal of helping families in need, with food and shelter through community organization, outreach and support that will hopefully last long after we get through all of this crazy crap.
This holiday season, as we’ve done annually, we’re offering a 30% discount on all camera straps through NautiStraps.com with 10% of all sales donated to Family Promise. Use code “NAUTIORNICE20” at checkout to get 30% off any and everything we build. On top of that, the kids wanted to match donations out of their savings. In lieu of buying their loving, and arguably deserving parents any gifts, we told them they could donate as much as they wanted to Family Promise, and that the Mrs and I will cover any remainder.
If you, or someone you know might enjoy a quality hand built camera strap for the holidays, we’d be happy to build one for you. We’ve felt very lucky to be able to use this business to donate to various organizations in the past as it enables us to utilize our well controlled livelihood (we have two employees) to hopefully help out where we might not have had the opportunity to in the past.
If not needing a camera strap, and you have the means, it is a good year to try and find organizations that are aiming to help many of us that have been more directly affected by this horrible pandemic. We like Family Promise, but there are many, many others. On top of that, try to support small, family or employee owned, and local businesses wherever possible. We need as much help as we can get.
We are a large, global community and through our collective power of purchase, we can truly help keep many friends, families, neighbors and wonderful strangers afloat by choosing to buy through them when and wherever possible.
Happy holidays, and happy everything to everyone. We hope you and your families are well, healthy and have the happiest of seasons that we all can.
You can see Nauti Straps HERE. You can find Family Promise HERE.
With love and gratitude (and thankfulness that 2020 is almost over),
Team Nauti
Tyson Robichaud Photo-blography 