Tag: hunger

EPA Issues an Innovative Challenge

Posted on by robbie

Who says that government agencies don’t get innovative? The Environmental Protection Agency has partnered with the Agriculture Department to issue a challenge to creative problem solvers and entrepreneurs: Find would-be waste in the food chain, and re-direct it to feed America’s hungry and undernourished people. Food makes up a large portion of the nation’s landfills, and decomposition is a major contributor to climate change. Rather than react with bureaucratic subcommittees and lots of red tape, the Food Waste Challenge invites industrial leaders and universities, and even sports and entertainment businesses, to find ways to solve waste and hunger problems at the same time.

 

Turn Your Foodie Photos Into Food for Needy Communities

Posted on by robbie

A New York–based non-profit has taken a cultural trend and turned it into a brilliant innovation that lets Manhattan restaurants and diners fight hunger as far away as South Africa, with just a few clicks or taps. The Lunchbox Fund is built on the idea that nutrition fuels education, and the fund’s creative staff members are working to make sure that students in South Africa get the nourishment to help them perform strongly in school. Their new program, Feedie, takes the popular practice of foodie photos and translates those images into donations. When a foodie at a registered restaurant snaps and posts a photo, the restaurant contributes cash to the cause. So far more than 50 restaurants are on board; they’ve already provided 800 meals.

Seattle Readies ‘Financial Empowerment Centers’ for Low-Income Residents

Posted on by robbie

Often it takes plenty of extra cash on hand to afford a consultation with a financial advisor, but Seattle has a plan to make financial advice available to the people who need it most: the working poor. Using a $1.8 million grant from the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation, Seattle will open four “financial empowerment centers” in 2014, where the ten percent of city residents who live in poverty can seek financial advice, coaching, and money management training with the goal to reduce their debt and shepherd them out of poverty. Families will be taught ways to avoid predatory lenders such as payday loans and credit card debt, and financial counselors will work with them intensively for several years. The plan is based on a similar program New York City implemented in 2008, which helped 19,000 families reduce their debt by $9 million.