Thank You, Readers!

I came to appreciate the broad reach of Willamette Week's Give! Guide one cold and windy Saturday last month.

My daughter and I had been delivering wine, beer and coffee to a number of you who gave $250 or more when we stopped at Peet's on Northeast Broadway. By the cash register was Write Around Portland's ad from the Give! Guide and a note saying all tips during December would go to WRAP. Later, I learned Peet's chipped in $1,000 to go with the more than $1,300 its employees raised.

This handsome donation, and others like it, come on top of more than $78,800 directly raised through our website for 26 Portland nonprofits in our second annual year-end giving effort. More than 900 of you made almost 1,100 contributions totaling $73,330. WW matched 26 employee gifts with $1,480. And Momentum Market Intelligence, a local firm that does research for Fortune 500 high-tech companies, provided $4,000 in matching grants.

The $4,000 from MMI go to those organizations raising the greatest number—as opposed to amounts—of gifts, first from donors 35 years of age and under; and, then, from donors over 35. Winners in the 35-and-under category are Bicycle Transportation Alliance (first place), Northwest Academy (second) and Write Around Portland (third). In the over-35 category, MMI's matching grants go to the Feral Cat Coalition of Oregon (first), Planned Parenthood of the Columbia/Willamette (second) and Wallace Medical Concern (third).

Dinner with WW's editor Mark Zusman and me goes to a donor of $3,000-plus who wants to remain anonymous. Also getting prizes are randomly selected donors: Beth Raisman wins the two chef's dinners at clarklewis, and Amy Burnette will get the deluxe boxed set of Johnny Cash's The Legend.

I'm certain all 26 groups want to join me in sending you huge thanks for your generosity. Additional praise for help with the goodies go to E&R Wine Shop, Stumptown Coffee, Maletis Beverage, Music Millennium, Powell's Books and American Apparel. Finally, thanks to the MMI team: Lisa Albrecht, Sanjit Kundu, Brandon Lane, Sabrina Lomeu, Tammi Deming, Meredith Lind, Kellie Helm, Erin Crane and Cindy Dederick.

Richard H. Meeker

Publisher

P.S. So many of you gave $250 or more that I'm still about 35 deliveries short. I apologize and hope to get you your beer, wine and coffee by the end of the month.

WWeek 2015