Valentine’s Day, a time in which we celebrate companionship alongside the loved ones in our lives, often involves buying flowers, purchasing small bits of cardboard embossed with cheesy poems, and paying for overpriced meals. Over time, however, those activities become routine and lose their luster. If you’d like to shake things up but aren’t sure how to do it, the Mackinac Center is here for you. Below are several options, which should wow that special someone.

Subscription to Capitol Confidential (Free for One Year)

Honestly, is there a better way to impress your true love than to bestow a year of Michigan Capitol Confidential, at no cost to yourself? Capitol Confidential serves as Michigan’s watchdog, and within its pages your loved one will get reports from a free-market news perspective. If that doesn’t warm the heart and soul, and keep the spirit of Valentine’s Day alive, I don’t know what will.

Even better, if that’s a hit, you can donate $25 to the Mackinac Center to keep that subscription rolling for another year.

Tickets to An Evening with the Mackinac Center

This year, the Mackinac Center is celebrating America’s 250^th anniversary at its annual gala – An Evening with the Mackinac Center. The acclaimed historian Walter Isaacson is our guest of honor. He’s an all-American journalist with many notable biographies under his belt, including one of Benjamin Franklin.

Although the dinner isn’t until Friday, June 5, your partner will no doubt be looking forward to spending the evening networking with Mackinac Center donors and staff, sampling hors d’oeuvres, enjoying a conversation about Isaacson’s latest book, “The Greatest Sentence Ever Written,” and having a delicious meal alongside you.

If that isn’t motivation enough, individual tickets are discounted until April 1. Don’t wait: Purchase those early bird tickets here. As Benjamin Franklin once said, “Dost thou love life? Then do not squander your Valentine’s gift on roses, which are temporary, but instead on tickets to ‘An Evening with the Mackinac Center.’”

Alright, so Benjamin Franklin didn’t say exactly that, but your significant other doesn’t have to know, right?

Sponsor a Cubicle

The database manager at the Mackinac Center, Christopher Smith (me), offers a great opportunity in which donors can purchase the naming rights for his cubicle. For a $50 donation to the Mackinac Center, you can sponsor his cubicle for a month and name it in honor of your loved one. Where else can you get that sort of deal, and at such an affordable price?

Please keep in mind, however, that all names must be office-appropriate, and cannot go against the Mackinac Center’s mission. The slots fill up fast, so if you’re interested, email Chris (me) today at Smith@mackinac.org.

Joining our Legacy Society

If you really want to make a deep impact, not only for your loved one on Valentine’s Day, but for all the cherished ones in your life for years to come, you might consider adding the Mackinac Center to your will or estate plan. This will help preserve, for generations, the values of liberty, self-reliance and accountable government. If you’d like to learn more, you can do so here.

Closing Thoughts

These are a few ideas on how you might consider showing appreciation for your special Valentine, while also supporting the Mackinac Center as it champions on behalf of Michiganders and beyond.

Regardless of whether you take these recommendations or not, on behalf of the Mackinac Center, I wish you a wonderful Saint Valentine’s Day.

PS: If you have children in your life who are unsure of what to hand out as classroom gifts, consider ordering free copies of The Adventures of Penny and Paws here. Sharing the excitement of energy policy and licensing laws, it’s far more awesome than receiving a generic cutout card depicting a superhero or a sparkling unicorn. And if there are worries it’s not ‘Valentine Day” enough, your child can just draw some hearts on its cover!

Permission to reprint this blog post in whole or in part is hereby granted, provided that the author (or authors) and the Mackinac Center for Public Policy are properly cited.