For decades, we’ve compiled and published the Wish List, which includes everything from pens, office paper, computers, baby clothes to cat food and more.

In print on Thanksgiving Day, the Wish List has been an effective way to connect those in need with those who can help.

The last few years, however, we’ve seen a dip in giving, and I’d like to change that.

This year, we’re streamlining the Wish List, and will be more strategic in promoting the Wish List and how people can help.

Our Citizen Patriot staff will also help kick start the effort by “adopting” one of the nonprofits — Big Brothers Big Sisters of Jackson County — with the goal of tracking down everything on their list. It won’t be easy but we’ve got a core group of people committed to making it happen.

Community News Director Sara Scott file photo

I’d like to invite other businesses or groups to step up to the challenge and adopt a Jackson area nonprofit’s Wish List. Some lists are relatively easy, while others are pretty challenging. Most fall somewhere in between.

Most years, about 30 nonprofit groups participate, and each group’s list is limited to 12 items.

The Wish Lists will start publishing on our website, mlive.com/Jackson, the week of Nov. 18, with the full list published in the Citizen Patriot on Nov. 28, or Thanksgiving Day.

Interested in helping out? Please feel free to reach out to me and I can send you a Wish List directly, or you can wait until they’re published.

There’s a lot of need in the Jackson area and it’s important to help those nonprofits that make up a key part of our community’s safety net.