Give a Goat, Starve a Food Talker! What’s Your Charity? How Do You Give? Do You Need Some Help?

Hi @Jase & Friends -

There used to be the occasional FTC thread requesting charitable support for food related causes. They didn’t receive a lot of traction. I was thinking to direct you to the LA Food Bowl thread, but there is some dissatisfaction with the events overall.

If folks are interested, I donated a goat (for milk) and chickens thru https://www.heifer.org/. Of course, like anything else, there is controversy over livestock programs. But this particular organization determines the needs of its recipients. If there is an abundance of livestock donations your money will go toward crops, water, tools, etc.

I can’t say whether or not my efforts make a difference, but if anyone has a particular food charity they support, please feel free to post it right here.

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The late, great Sam Fujisaka had a PhD and worked with emerging nations on agricultural programs. He had high praise for Heifer. Our adult children and we no longer exchange Christmas gifts but rather make donations to the organization of our choice. We’ve been doing Heifer for a few years now. And Bob’s former employer matches our donation.

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Before we started moving around (home renovation) and eating restaurant food everyday we would try to eat at home for one month of the year and donate the money saved to a charity.

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That’s pretty cool how the funds go into other applicable resources.

Sam was a saint, although he would be the first to deny it. RIP, such a great gracious person. If he had high praise for them, then that’s all the recommendation I’d ever need.

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That brought tears to my eyes. He and I never had a face to face (although we threatened to get really drunk in the Philippines and eat balut together)

With Heifer, when a person gets, say, a goat and the goat has a baby then they give that to another family. The ultimate, up close and personal “pay it forward.”

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VOLUNTEERS NEEDED

This could be some excellent volunteer hours for the teens. Do you know whether there is an age limit?

Excellent idea. It says family-friendly and open to all.

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Hi @WireMonkey!

Thanks for posting this https://www.shareameal.net/!

No hijacking necessary. We do so much talking about stuffing our own faces so I thought it would be nice to have a thread about charitable efforts in the food world. It doesn’t get as much love as it should and I guess that’s ok. But if you have something to share feel free to post it right here.

Happy Eating!

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Thank you for sharing this thread! I think we all would like to do more but worry we’re not going about it in a useful way or even worse, possibly causing more harm. Towards that end, personal recommendations/experiences are always very helpful.

My family has also contributed to Heifer International for a long time so I can third the recommendation! I don’t know if it’s related in any way but I was gratified to learn recently of the similar efforts put forward in the US by the Pig Bank founded by Fannie Lou Hamer and Dorothy Height. I know I’m catching up on old news by only just now reading “The Potlikker Papers” but it’s a fascinating history I couldn’t believe I didn’t know before now.

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Me neither. I’ll check it out. Happy Giving!

Again, not specific to Heifer International (sorry) but there doesn’t seem to be a dedicated thread to food security/sovereignty, etc. so I thought I’d follow up again here…

Eater LA dropped a long list of food and food industry related efforts to lend assistance in the LA area:

I’ve had some experience with a couple of these organizations but was waiting until I had a more solid impression before mentioning them on FTC. One thing I will say is to be mindful but also a little persistent and follow up in reaching out to any of these efforts- I get the impression a lot of these folks are impressively well organized but also are very busy and have to field a lot of requests and questions.

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This is great @WireMonkey. I should change the title because the thread is really for any kind of food charity peeps want to post about. :slightly_smiling_face:

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I’d also be happy to start a new thread since Heifer International is non-regional and a lot of what I’m looking into is Los Angeles specific. Whatever folks want to do!

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Old thread so here’s something we do and did. For several years now we’ve made an automatic, monthly donation to the Food Bank of Northern Nevada. I’m sure every area has one. That way they can count on and budget knowing some monies will be coming in. Also the food banks have WAY more buying power than an individual. Now recently when we got our ‘stimulus check’ or whatever it was called we gave that the our food bank. I spoke with someone there who said their requests were up 50%. Just a couple of thoughts. Thanks for this.

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That’s great, Cath. Cash is king.

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Thanks for posting this. I’d love to hear more about your experiences and which ones are good and can use help. This kind of volunteerism is right up my alley.

I have run into having to be persistent in past efforts to reach out to food charity organizations and getting a lot of radio silence.

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I’d be happy to report back when I’ve had a little more experience with various organizations (so I’m not unfairly assessing with what’s essentially a first impression). Or I’d be happy to DM with the basics of what we’ve already done (which is helpful at the very least from an outreach and basic impression standpoint).

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