Support
Forgotten Harvest as they continue their work to provide food
assistance and fight hunger. They have a lot to celebrate
including starting Forgotten Harvest Farmswhere they grew
more than 850,000 pounds of fresh produce. Additionally, they have won
Charity Navigator's 4 Star ranking for the seventh year in a row. This
honor is earned and only 2% of the organizations they rate, hold the 4
Star ranking.
This "trucking company with a soul," is based in Oak Park Michigan and is a National Partner of Feeding America.
Feeding
America is a Better Business Bureau accredited charity based in Chicago
with a network of over 200 food banks in the United States. In addition
to partnering with Feeding America, Forgotten Harvest holds the
distinction of being chosen as Crain's Detroit Business's Best Managed
Non Profit in 2007.
You can check out Forgotten Harvest's support of Jessica Hauser and Coach Khali of theDowntown youth Boxing Gym, "100% of the kids have graduated from high school and 96% have gone on to college",on theForgotten Harvest You Tube page!
The
Forgotten Harvest Rescue Team is able to accommodate groups of up to 40
people and includes a variety of different ways to participate which
includes and may not be limited to the following:
Warehouse Crew
Farm Team
DIY Fundraising
Data Entry Volunteers
The Volunteer Waiver and Checklist can be viewed at the link below:
Summer is here and you are bound to end up cooking some food of some
kind for some event/reason. For those of you who end up cooking for
something because you allowed yourself to get roped into it, here is a
pretty simple meal that tastes good and looks great.
Food
for Life Baking Company sent me a few of their products including
Sprouted Whole Grain Penne Pasta, Almond Sprouted Whole Grain Cereal and
Cinnamon Raisin Whole Grain Cereal.
As mentioned above
the simple meal I prepared is just pasta with a few basic ingredients
added in. I cooked the Sprouted Grain Penne Pasta and added some baby
spinach once the pasta was pretty much finished cooking. FYI baby
spinach cooks down pretty fast. I also added in Feta Cheese and
tomatoes. I don't know if there is an ideal time to add the Feta and
tomatoes so you may want to search around and see what you can find as
to preparing pasta dishes.
The link below has pictures
that can give you an idea of what these ingredients look like in case
you have never eaten or cooked with them before.
I
am learning as I go about sprouted grains. I added some of the Cinnamon
Raisin Whole Grain Cereal to a yogurt snack and I have also had it as a
snack by itself. I've had the Almond Sprouted Whole Grain Cereal as a
snack by itself as well.
If you are interested in a
self guided/self-paced introduction to Sprouted Grain they have a
resource on their website that gives you information about the benefits
as well as the available Food For Life products that include sprouted
grain as an ingredient. I like that it is detailed and it seems to me
that these products would be good for anyone who has food sensitivities
or is preparing meals for someone who does. Their website says that
sprouting produces Vitamin C, I wonder if sprouted grain products would
be a good source of Vitamin C for people who have a citrus allergy. (* I
am not a health care professional and this is not meant to serve in any
way as medical advisement*)
Food
For Life also has a section on their website that lists out the Low
Glycemic and Diabetic Friendly offerings. I'm impressed that they
obviously took a lot of time to address the potential concerns of a wide
variety of customers. Very inclusive.
I
had the opportunity to interview Clara Botero, founder of Dulce Bean,a
MWBE bakery featured in the Miami Herald. The food heritage of Ms.
Botero's business goes back to her family roots in Colombia and cooking
for her family when she was younger.
Dulce Bean provides a variety of gluten free and grain free choices such as Organic Wheat and Gluten Free Apple Ginger Cakeand Organic Wheat and Gluten Free Bananas and Cream Cake. Between
interviewing Clara and visiting her website I learned about some of the
healthy products she uses including coconut flour, something I have not
yet baked with as well as coconut oil which I previously wrote about
while interviewing Pooka Pure and Simple.
I have to give credit where credit is due and take a moment to mention that the food photography on her website is amazing.
In addition to selling her products she includes the article, "How to Get Started in Health," on
her site that reviews healthy eating and gives a primer of sorts for
those who are starting out with the process of changing their food
choices.
Check out the FAQ's section to find out about shipping, pricing, billing, order status, international shipping etc...
All
Dulce Bean products are offered Whole Sale and you can find out more
information about this by contacting the company directly.
The Resources section
on the website includes topics such as and I think is a great addition
as it is a way for you to build a relationship with her brand based on
the quality of her products as well as looking to Dulce Bean as a source
of information.
Some of the topics include, "How to Sprout Your Own Flour","Sprouted Flours and Products," and "Great Recipes, Blogs and Sites."
It has been a while since I did a post related to food assistance. The North American branch of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations is participating in a really interesting event coming up that I myself would like to live stream.
Based in Washington, DC FAO North America is
participating in the upcoming 1st Annual Food Tank Summit which will be
held at the George Washington University on January 21st. You can sign
up to watch the live stream
and check out the participants such as the National Young Farmers
Coalition,Harvard Law School and the GWU Institute for Sustainability on
the Food Tank website.
Q How did you come to develop an interest in agriculture and social justice?
The
organization I work for, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO),
is a specialized agency of the United Nations with headquarters in Rome,
Italy, and 5 Regional Offices which are in Africa, the Near East, Asia,
Latin America, and Europe. FAO also has more than 80 country offices in
those regions, where we advise governments directly and conduct project
operations. The FAO is a key player in the global community’s fight to
end hunger and poverty and I’ve been privileged to work for FAO for over
25 years in several roles, the latest as director of the FAO’s North
America office in Washington, DC.
Q What was the impetus for the creation of FAO and specifically, the priority of Investment in Agriculture?
The
founders of FAO over 60 years ago had the foresight to understand the
central role of agriculture for human development and the duty of the
international community to tackle the problem of hunger and
malnutrition. They realized the need for an international organization
with equal representation by all nations in the world which could
coordinate agricultural policies and global interventions and give a
voice to millions of people living in poor countries and who are
unheard. FAO has been able to adapt to the demands of a constantly
changing world and help countries respond to new challenges that have
emerged: climate change, degraded land and water resources, wide-scale
animal epidemics, food crises and natural disasters, and in recent years
soaring food prices and market instability.
As
to the priority of investment in agriculture, it’s been demonstrated
over the last two decades that investment in agriculture is one of the
most effective ways to reduce hunger and poverty, especially in rural
areas.
Many countries that have consistently invested in agriculture are
on track to achieve the UN’s first Millennium Development Goal which is
to reduce by half the proportion of hungry people in the world. FAO’s
recently published State of Food and Agriculture (2012)* (2014 publication is at the link below) provided
comprehensive data on the relative sizes of investment and expenditure
flows by farmers, governments, donors and private foreign investors in
low- and middle-income countries.
What emerged is that in these 76 low-
and middle-income countries, farmers themselves are by far the largest
investors in agriculture, but face all kinds of risks because of poor
access to resources, lack of infrastructure, political instability and
lots of other challenges.
Recognizing that investing in agriculture
raises productivity and incomes and reduces hunger, FAO has drawn up
guidelines for countries to improve their governance of land and
resource rights, and principles for responsible investment as a basis
for determining long-term benefits and choosing the best investment
options.
Q Is it possible to end hunger and/or poverty?
Measuring
the different dimensions of food security is very complex; one
standalone indicator that most people are familiar with is the number of
people in the world suffering from chronic hunger, which is defined as
suffering for at least one year without enough food for an active and
healthy life. While this number has dropped from 1 billion people in
1990 to 842 million as most recently reported in 2012, the rate of
progress is too slow to reach the international goals for hunger
reduction set by the United Nations (part of the UN’s Millennium
Development Goals), often because of high rates of population growth in
many hunger-affected countries. Still, it shows that real progress can
be achieved when countries and communities take action to address the
various dimensions of food security which are: food availability,
economic and physical access to food, food utilization and stability
(vulnerability and shocks) over time.
Some
countries, notably Brazil and others just a few years ago, set much
more demanding targets of eradicating hunger, and in 2012 the UN took up
that theme with its own “Zero Hunger Challenge” with the goal of
eliminating hunger in our lifetimes. The global community is putting
much more effort into addressing the burdens of malnutrition: hunger,
under-nutrition, micro nutrient deficiencies, and overweight and obesity.
Q Are these conditions reflections of the worst parts of human nature?
Most
people are unaware that the quantity of food produced on a global
basis is more than enough for everyone, and yet chronic hunger persists
on such a scale whereby one person in eight around the world cannot get
enough food to live an active and healthy life.
There are severe and
lasting consequences to this problem because hunger is accompanied by
under-nutrition: one in four children in the world under five years of
age is stunted; this means 165 million children are so malnourished they
will never reach their full physical and cognitive potential; about two
billion people lack the nutrition they need to grow and develop into
healthy human beings.
Q Is
the role of government to (1) recognize the value in preventing poverty
and hunger, (2) recognize that this requires constant effort and (3) be
responsible for creating and enforcing legislation that establishes a
standard quality of life for all?
Well,
returning to the theme of investment in agriculture, and that farmers
must be central to any investment strategy, a good investment climate
depends on markets and governments. Markets generate price incentives
that signal to farmers and other private businesses when and where
opportunities exist for making profitable investments.
Governments are
responsible for creating the legal, policy and institutional environment
that enables private investors, both smallholder farmers and larger
enterprises, to respond to market opportunities in socially responsible
ways. Without this enabling environment and market incentives, farmers
will not invest enough in agriculture or achieve socially optimal
results.
Q In
a world where all governments were responsible (according to the
standards set by international social justice organizations), would non
profit organizations and non governmental organizations solely exist to
conduct scholarly research and advise political representatives during
the process of creating legislation?
A
world facing a major challenge such as eradicating hunger needs all
possible resources and entities involved in food security to be
committed to action: no single entity or sector can achieve such a goal
alone. Over the last several years the UN system, built on a traditional
constituency of member nations, has become much more inclusive in its
formulation of policy and thematic challenges to be addressed by the
world community.
The FAO, among others, has greatly expanded its
dialogue beyond governments in order to get full involvement of civil
society organizations and NGOs in the analysis of issues, exchange of
concrete on-the-ground experience in all areas affecting food security.
The challenges of hunger are vast and multi-dimensional; no government
can confront these issues alone. Partnerships with CSO, NGO, academia
and the private sector is the only way to achieve progress and lasting
results.
Q From the perspective of the young person living in poverty in a rural area
what kinds of current programs, initiatives and opportunities exist to
improve their life in the immediate future as well as over the long
term?
On
a global scale, many factors justify a strong focus on better enabling
smallholder farmers to invest in agriculture, starting with their sheer
numbers and economic importance and relative productivity. About 85
percent of 525 million farms worldwide are operated by smallholders on
plots measuring less than 2 hectares. Sampling in developing countries
showed that smallholder farms generate 60 to 70 percent of total rural
income through farm and non-farm activity; they have high potential to
be engines of growth and poverty reduction.
Compared to large-scale
farmers, smallholders can have significant advantages in terms of land
productivity. At the same time smallholders face disadvantages such as
access to land, markets, inputs, credit insurance and technology and
sometimes government polices work against them. Many smallholders are
women, for whom these constraints are, almost everywhere, even more
severe. Closing the gender gap and ensuring equal access by women to
resources and assets is needed to accelerate agricultural and rural
development and reduce poverty.
Q Are
under served communities, both rural and urban, in the United States
and other developed counties, included in the conversations and
investment priorities of FAO and other partner organizations? If not,
what steps are necessary to move this outcome?
While
developed nations are the main financial sources for the FAO and other
humanitarian and development organizations, the governance, the
definition of objectives and priority setting is decided and agreed
together as a community of member nations, with most of the work
directed to support developing countries in the challenges of food
security.
The developed nations also provide vast technical expertise,
goods and services which are deployed in developing countries under FAO
programs and projects. The experience of developed nations in addressing
their own challenges of poverty, hunger and rural development, or
confronting animal, crop and plant diseases, is also a factor in
determining priorities and action plans.
I was getting my day started and thinking about communication styles,
idiosyncrasies we all have as a result of where we are from, where we
have lived, languages spoken etc....
In short, communication fingerprints and how interesting they are in their origin.
While
living in NYC a few years ago I met a student who was originally from
India but had been raised in Sweden. I got the impression that she had
fielded more than one awkwardly worded question about 'what' she is.
I
can remember meeting a Ghanaian who speaks English as a fourth language
and she shared that her husband (then fiancee) is Korean and was
adopted by an Italian-American family.
Working for a
non profit in Washington,DC I met a London School of Economics grad who
was raised on a Norwegian compound in Madagascar.Not making that up
folks.I would think that having this sort of experience in your
formative years would yield a pretty exceptional worldview but I didn't
set off with an endless stream of questions.
According to a Pew researcher
featured in the hourly news summary currently up on NPR, interracial
marriage is on the rise.Add to that, if it's not just my impression,
people in general seem to be moving alll over the place for work,
education,marriage or just travel for their own leisure.
What will communication fingerprints look like in the future?
"I think at our highest level we are all in some way searching for connectivity and a purpose. I love the feeling of going to bed each night feeling like someone,somewhere has benefited from my work.It keeps me going though the hard times- and there have been many. before this I certainly had my fair share of soul-less jobs that I just did for the paycheck or the status, but they left me feeling so empty,which makes me really appreciate the higher meaning in this work."
"One of the best parts about Sundara is how cost-efficient our entire mission is. $130 pays a hygiene ambassador's salary for an entire month and lifts her and her family out of extreme poverty. $100 provides soap to 50+ children in a village school for an entire year.Fundraising for these children is the best way to support Sundara's mission-along with spreading the word!
We would love and welcome you to get in touch with us(michelle@sundarafund.org,erin@sundarafund.org) if they want to be a member of our board,intern or be involved in any other way.
We are so grateful for any and all support!
"Through recycling soap, we’ve rescued thousands of kilograms of waste
from ending up in overcrowded landfills – but more importantly we’ve
brought soap to those who couldn’t afford it, given economic opportunity
to unemployed women and seen increased rates of hand washing in all the
communities we work in."
The movement towards using business as a source for social impact has gained a considerable amount of traction as a variety of companies have decidedly established a presence within the landscape of philanthropic initiatives.
Corporate resources combined with a foundation arm have the potential to steward various forms of support as appropriate.
Over the years I have learned of several companies that have some level of community engagement. I was at my local grocery store and came
across a product from Soapbox Soaps.
Through Soapbox Soaps, I learned of another opportunity for conscious consumerism. I purchased the,"Smooth and Repair Coconut Oil Body Wash."
The goal of Soap Box Soaps, "Is to empower customers to change the world through everyday, quality purchases."
I see great value in demonstrating that conscious consumerism can be applied in a way that the average person walking down the street can access.
So exactly what impact was created here?
While visiting www.soapboxsoaps.com/hope, I entered the, "Hope Code," printed on the container and learned of the Sundara Fund.
soapboxsoaps.com
Sundarafund.org
My impression of the idea of conscious consumerism is that purchasing decisions complimented with grants and other forms of support can affect a meaningful social impact.
