FEEDBlog joins Bloggers against Hunger

With the World Food Program reporting that now 1 billion people are officially counted among the hungry, we wanted to join the count of people who are trying to raise awareness about this awful scourge to humanity.
The WFP Bloggers Against Hunger movement is a great way to get more people talking about the effects of the food crisis and the increase in the chrnoically hungry around the world.

Millennium Promise Partner's Meeting

Photo from visit to Ruhiira Millennium Village in Uganda, 2009.

Just as September and the UN General Assembly are getting the fall off to a running start, the Millennium Promise Partners Meeting was a great harbinger of progress in Africa for the months to come. For us at FEED, our partnership with the Millennium Villages Project officially kicked off a few months ago when we brought the first of the FEED Health backpacks to Community Health Workers (CHW's) traveling on foot to visit households throughout Ruhiira, Uganda. At this year's Millennium Promise Partners meeting, the Ruhiira team was in town to discuss various successes, including the CHW program, as was President Museveni of Uganda, proving that there is a great will to scale the Millennium Villages successes.

For me, the best part of working with Millennium Promise on the Millennium Villages Project is the real sense that silos and the territoriality of old school aid are being broken down. At FEED Projects, we use the fashion industry to raise money and awareness for smart development programs, like school-feeding implemented by the UN World Food Program (WFP) and the MV CHW program. The Millennium Villages have school-feeding programs in most of their sites and the partnership with WFP is so strong that WFP Executive Director was at the MV meeting. Actually, it felt like a veritable development-community reunion, besides WFP colleagues, friends from the ONE campaign, UNICEF, and the Clinton Foundation were all there to support the Villages and work together. I also saw friends in the fashion world, like Mary Fanaro, who uses a similar model to FEED in her Omnipeace brand to raise money and awareness for the Millennium Villages and met knew friends from the Tommy Hilfiger Corporate Foundation. It is so inspiring and hopeful to be a part of a great community of people working together to affect big change for Africa.

the New FEED/READ 3 bag at Barnes and Noble

Fashion's Night Out - Thursday, September 10

Check out this awesome video about Fashion's Night Out on Thursday, September 10 - featuring Sarah Jessica Parker, Ashley Olsen, Vera Wang, P. Diddy, Anna Wintour, and many others!

And be sure to visit us at the Barnes and Noble on 46th Street and 5th Avenue at 6PM for the launch of our new FEED/READ 3 bag - the perfect, back-to-school tote!

Getting Real About the High Price of Cheap Food

Getting Real About the High Price of Cheap Food

GREAT article about the hidden negative externalities of our food system. READ IT.

FEED 1 Bag on ONE.org

We are thrilled to announce the launch of the FEED 1 bags on ONE.org.

To celebrate the power of ONE and FEED 1 working together, we wrote a posting for the One.org blog. Check it out!!!!

Laughing Pizza Concert on Saturday to support the FEED Foundation! Come out and join us!

Come out and join us on Saturday, August 15th from 3:30PM - 5:00Pm at the Southampton Cultural Center’s Levitas Center for the Arts! FEED and TeddyShare has teamed up with Laughing Pizza, a popular family band who will be performing some fabulous tunes, and Dylan's Candy Bar to ensure fun for everyone! The first 200 in attendance will receive gift boxes for a free pound of candy at Dylan's - yum! Our FEED bears, Plumpy and Nut, will also be on sale, as well as our FEED 1 bag!

Tickets are $7 for children and $10 for adults - all proceeds will support the FEED Foundation.

Southampton Cultural Center’s Levitas Center for the Arts
25 Pond Lane, Southampton
August 15, 2009
3:30pm-5:00pm

We hope to see you there!

Quail Hill Farm Orchard Dinner

Last weekend, I had the best dinner ever... It was at Quail Hill Farm in Amagansett, NY.  My favorite farmer friend, Scott Chaskey (pictured to the right with Snook from the show "Its a Big Big World"), invited my boyfriend and I to pay him a visit and learn more about his farm.  We showed up not knowing what to expect, and saw people of all ages unloading their cars with pots and containers, foldable chairs, guitars, and more.  And as we approached the orchard where people were gathering, it was clear that we had come upon a pot luck dinner.  The embarrassment of not having brought anything to the table (literally) was short lived, as everyone was so friendly and warm.  The people in attendance, like Scott, are members of the Peconic Land Trust- many of them farmers themselves.  It was a beautiful sight... there was a large table of organic, homemade dishes, as well as local wine, a banjo player and his quartet, and loads of cute kids running around.  Something magical seems to happen when good food is shared among a good community of people, and I was thrilled to experience it at Quail Hill Farm!

The Peconic Land Trust works to conserve Long Island's working farms and natural land, and for more information about that visit: www.peconiclandtrust.org.

And for more information about Northeast Organic Farming Association of NY, which Scott Chaskey- the organic farming guru and all around amazing person- is President of, please visit:

www.nofany.org.

G8 Summit Announces $15 Billion in Aid to Farmers

The NY Times announced this morning that the world’s leading powers will contribute $15 billion in money and supplies to help millions of the world’s poorest farmers grow enough food to feed themselves. Since a large proportion of the world's poorest people work as subsistence farmers, this initative will enable starving people to grow their own food, rather than depend on shipments of U.S. crops during famines.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/09/world/europe/09food.html

G8 First Wives to Meet with WFP

On the agenda at the G8 summit in Italy this week is climate change, the global financial crisis, and food security! According to the UK's Telegraph, Silvio Berlusconi, Italian Prime Minister and the G8 host, has promised cash worth up to £9 billion ($15 billion) to help develop agriculture in poor countries. Moreover, the wives of the G8 leaders will go to a presentation organised by the World Food Programme on the role of women in fighting hunger in the developing world! 

Here are the links to full articles!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/g8/5776739/G8-summit-what-is-at-stake.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/g8/5777689/G8-summit-wives-have-busy-schedule.html