The strange week before the New Year is upon us. We are cooking, baking, cleaning, and reading.

Mostly, we are feeling very grateful for all of you, who are buoying our wonderful Yakima Valley through a pandemic with your commitment to our community. We see it in your support of local businesses and your kindness with each other and strangers as we practice social distancing. It is a bright light to see during a tough year.

We - along with many of you - are looking forward to seeing how 2021 unfolds.

Until then, if you find yourself needing some comfort food during this time (or anytime), we have some suggestions this week. We've been doing some snacking.

We are thinking of all of you, wishing you good health and a very safe holiday.

Checking in – how are you doing? We’re hanging in there and we hope you are, too. With our COVID numbers high and our only hospital with limited acute care capacity, we are grateful for all those who are able to hang at home, mask up, and stay safe as much as you can. And it seems a vaccine is upon us! The light at the end of the tunnel is getting brighter. We have much to be hopeful about.

Even if you are among the lucky ones who haven't been sick, lost your job, income, health, loved ones, sanity ... it’s been a rough one. We’d like to congratulate all of us for getting this far, and supporting each other.

Speaking of supporting each other, there are so many local businesses joining forces to help each other out right now – and it’s made for some great local holiday shopping. Here are a few we’re crushing on right now.

It’s the week of Thanksgiving. Perhaps one of the most memorable of our holidays yet, simply for the fact that our hearts are breaking a little as we plan for FaceTime dinners and missing many of our friends and family with whom we would usually gather. However, a Zoom Thanksgiving is much preferable to an ICU Thanksgiving. And for that, we’re here to celebrate and give thanks.

Once more, with feeling: Yakima, you have our hearts. We’re so thankful for you all. We’ll make it through this.

In the meantime, here are a few things we are crushing on.

Central to IHY is our love for living and loving everything local. A core part of that love is dedicated to our locally-owned businesses. We promote them. We celebrate them. We cheers them every chance we get. A thriving local economy is the foundation to a healthy community.

The pandemic has revealed and highlighted how amazing and innovative Yakima entrepreneurs are, from launching online storefronts overnight to changing their business models to address community needs, and fully embracing Zoom as a meeting place.

While not under ideal conditions, we see YOU adapting and pivoting, business community. We see your drive-thrus and curbside pickups, we see your use of technology, we see you implementing protocols to keep our friends and families safe. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts!! We know this is not without sacrifice.

With the uptick in COVID-19 numbers, our businesses and community need to adjust again. We are all in this together.

What are we doing?…

Winter is coming.

Well, for a day this week, anyway. Check your water pipes and bundle up! This cold snap is a reminder that it can’t be delightfully warm forever, and that we’re all about to move inside. Also, big thank you to all for embracing masks! 😷 They will continue to play a big role in keeping our community safe and keeping our businesses open for the winter season.

Even with a pandemic still afoot, there are great things to shout about in Yakima. Here’s who we’re following and cheering for this week…

We're still here, loving our valley and all of you from our homes. And like many of you, we have lost track of time. Recently, we had a text message convo that started with, "Um, when was the last time I saw you IRL?" To which the response was 🤷.

It's been strange times. A little surreal, too. Like - it is really already October? Wasn’t it just June? Anyway…we’re going to do our best to pull ourselves out of our COVID time-warp and be back in regular touch.

Two updates.

First, it is voting season! Ballots are arriving on or around Friday, October 16th. And nothing says I Heart Yakima like voting. Of course, we have a big election coming, but every year, something is in motion and the best way to show your love for the community is to be engaged with your VOTE at the local, state, and federal levels.

We love voting so much, we teamed up with the wonderful folks at Hogback Development…

We’ve been struggling and bumming. And this is SO not our style. We are competition-level cheerleaders for Yakima. Our platform and our messages to you exist to connect you with the good things in our valley - businesses, people, and organizations. And circumstances have made that difficult lately.

We have a couple of things going on.

First, it’s nearly impossible to do what we do when

Our local living game is HOT.

To stay smart, clean, and caffeinated, we're ordering books from Inklings, soap from Selah Lavender Farm, and coffee from Basalt Roasters. We're supplementing our Pacific Northwest Fresh and McIlrath Farms produce boxes with extras from Dagdagan Farms, and picking up gift cards from Wrays (for We Are Yakima - extra thanks to Chris Brown at Wray’s and Banner Bank for their speedy help). We won't even share our most recent takeout orders. There's not enough room.

We are overwhelmed by all those who are jumping in to support We Are Yakima.

Georgetown Brewing Company announced that they are doing something they've never done before -- they're making Manny's Pale Ale six-packs available for six weeks. This is a big deal. Manny's has NEVER been canned. 100% of the proceeds will be donated to beverage and food industry workers throughout the state of Washington, distributed through We Are Yakima, Big Table, and the Plate Fund.

Swoon. When we lived in Seattle in our younger years, we spent our paychecks on pitchers of Manny's, so this gesture is filling our hearts a little extra. Our westside neighbors are shining bright, and in true Georgetown fashion, they are using what helped start them to pay it forward to the entire state that helped launch them. Georgetown Brewing, you are a class act.

Look for them in stores starting May 27th (May 23rd out of their taproom). Georgetown gave shout outs to many who helped make it happen, including these locals: Hollingbery & Son Hops and Roy Farms.

'Tis the weekend for celebrating mamas, hunting down plants, and purchasing beverages that benefit We Are Yakima (shameless, we know).
 
Because YOU are an insider, we tell you things first, like when to obsessively refresh your web browser.

• Gilbert Cellars is releasing their "We Are Yakima" Unoaked Chardonnay early next week. It will be ready for local delivery or shipping via their online store. Be on the lookout on social or just, you know, keep refreshing that browser.

• Our other We Are Yakima partners, Tieton Cider Works, has the goods online and for pickup, and the Bale Breaker drive-thru this weekend is OPEN. Additional details down below.

Proceeds will benefit the We Are Yakima fund. Don't forget to refer someone you know in the food and beverage industry who has been negatively impacted the COVID-19 crisis so we can connect with them.
 
Lastly, send us a note if you are or a local business you know is selling masks, bonus if there is a local spin on them. We'd love to support a Yakima Valley business and halt the spread of the disease. (Did you know science says if 80 percent of the population wore masks, we could own this pandemic? Check out the Czech Republic, Israel, Hong Kong, and Singapore!) Sign us up.

We know we were just in your inboxes, but we can't help ourselves. Our local love persists.

There's so much: blooming plants, grilled asparagus with sprinkles of Guerra’s seasoning (ICYMI, they now sell a Guerra's box ONLINE.), two places to get Mercedes’ enchiladas, kids have space to be outside after Zoom school, and most importantly, we are figuring out how best to support one another, including fundraisers that are kicking in to help those who are impacted more than others during the pandemic.

Last week, we - with our friends at Bale Breaker Brewing Company - launched We Are Yakima, a referral-based fund that alleviates the financial burden of those in the food and beverage industry who have been negatively impacted by the COVID-19 crisis. You can learn more here.

Additionally, we are donating to La Casa Hogar and Nuestra Casa's Emergency Relief Fund, and we are on the lookout for #nofarmersnowine stickers. Like We Are Yakima, all donations and proceeds go directly to locals in need.

Please continue to shop small and local for your everyday purchases. If you have more in you, consider supporting one of any of the funds popping up with monetary donations, forward this email, purchase a We Are Yakima beverage, make some face masks for warehouse and farm workers.