Even small contributions to health-focused charities and organizations can go a long way to alleviating hunger, promoting family farms, and combating malnutrition.
Even small contributions to health-focused charities and organizations can go a long way to alleviating hunger, promoting family farms, and combating malnutrition.
Got $10? How about $20? You’d be surprised how far even those small amounts can go when put toward good causes like alleviating hunger, promoting family farms, and combating malnutrition around the globe. If you’re passionate about health and believe in safe and sustainable foods for all, consider tax-deductible contributions to the following.
The Center for Foodborne Illness Research & Prevention. Cofounded by Barbara Kowalcyk (profiled in the film Food, Inc.) after the death of her two-and-a-half-year-old son, Kevin, from complications due to E. coli infection, the center supports research, education, consumer advocacy, and assistance to victims of serious foodborne illness.
Community Food Security Coalition. A group of over 300 organizations that help build infrastructure, train, and raise awareness around local and regional food systems to “ensure access to affordable, nutritious, and culturally appropriate food to all people at all times. We seek to develop self-reliance among all communities in obtaining their food and to create a system of growing, manufacturing, processing, making available, and selling food that is regionally based and grounded in the principles of justice, democracy, and sustainability.”
Farm Aid. Not just a yearly concert headlined by activist-performers like Willie Nelson, Farm Aid works year-round to support family farmers across the U.S. Their new Farmer Resource Network helps connect farmers to the resources they need to survive—and to promote more sustainable and profitable farming.
Fast Food Free. Started in 2008 by a 10-year-old food activist, Fast Food Free encourages kids to eat more consciously by taking the Fast Food Free Pledge. “I’d like to reach even more people across the U.S.,” founder Koa Halpern told us recently, “but travel budgets are limited.”
Feeding America. One of the largest national organizations working to alleviate hunger across the country, Feeding America provides food for 37 million Americans every year, including 14 million children.
Food Democracy Now. This national grass-roots organization promotes healthy, safe, sustainable food by influencing government policy. Food Democracy Now alerts supporters across the U.S. when important issues arise, collecting signatures and statements with which to influence key decision makers.
Kiva. The beautiful thing about giving through Kiva (the web-based microloan organization) is that you feel a personal connection to those receiving your financlal help. Whether you’re inclined to give to an Ecuadoran cacao farmer or a burgeoning chef in the U.S., Kiva allows you to select and stay in touch with those requesting the loan. “Nearly 98 percent of those who get loans eventually pay them back; most people choose to donate that money again to another individual, keeping the cycle going,” says Bennett Grassano, Kiva’s Director of Development.
The LunchBox Project. An off-shoot of Chef Ann Cooper's Food, Family, Farming Foundation, the LunchBox Project provides “tools that enable all schools, parents, advocates, students, administrators, teachers and food service staff to progress from serving highly processed, unhealthy food to serving fresh, scratch-cooked food.”
Project Healthy Children. This international organization provides pregnant women and children in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, and Central America with essential nutrients to prevent birth defects, retardation, and malnutrition.
Vitamin Angels. Founded in 1994, Vitamin Angels’ mission is to reduce “child mortality worldwide by connecting essential nutrients, especially vitamin A, with infants and children under five.” Over the past year, Vitamin Angels’ Operation 20/20 aimed to combat vitamin-A deficiency in approximately 20 million children across the globe.
