SAN ANTONIO – An annual online fundraising event in the Alamo city is playing a crucial role for charities unable to fundraise because of the pandemic.

The Ecumenical Center for Education, Counseling, and Health, a nonprofit organization that provides music therapy, is among the charity groups hoping the community will give big during the annual Big Give fundraising event.

“So music therapy is the use of music as a clinical tool to obtain therapeutic goals and objectives,” music therapist Elisabeth Hand says. “So in a mental health setting we work with a lot with depression anxiety and PTSD. In can be day-to-day struggles or very long-term.”

Like other mental health organizations, the center has had to utilize telehealth due to the pandemic.

“There definitely are limitations that we are still trying to work through and figure out certain materials and things like that,” Hand says.

Since May, musicians at the center have provided peaceful tunes for health care workers who are dealing with their own trauma.

“They provide music for an extended period of time to each nursing unit and you can see stress level just go down,” says Executive Director Mary Beth Fisk. 

However, COVID-19 has hindered this nonprofit’s ability to raise donation money.

“This year we have had a shortfall of well over $400,000 because of not being able to hold those very special events and bring in the money in that way,” Fisk says.

That money is used to offer affordable and free services to the community. The center is hoping that the Big Give, a nonprofit charitable website that allows donors to support charitable projects in their field of interest, will bridge the funding gap.

“We encourage our community members to please take and moment and donate,” says Fisk.

The Big Give this year is Thursday, September 10.