22%

22%

22% of New Yorkers have to choose between food and medical care. – City Harvest

Just thought you might want to know.

-Cara

Wednesday Will Now Have A Theme As Well

Wednesday is hump day, the day that separates where your work week starts from when you work week ends. I thought what a perfect day to take a break and do something quick and easy that will make a positive difference. This day will be reserved for petitions and causes.

Our first lucky “Hump Day” winner is ONE. I first heard of these guys reading Ben and Jerry’s email newsletter. They have partnered with the organization to gain more exposer for their cause. What ONE does is raise public awareness about the issues of global poverty, hunger, disease and efforts to fight such problems in the world’s poorest countries.

In their own words, “ONE believes that allocating more of the U.S. budget toward providing basic needs like health, education, clean water and food would transform the futures and hopes of an entire generation in the world’s poorest countries.

ONE is nonpartisan; there’s only one side in the fight against global AIDS and extreme poverty. Working on the ground in communities, colleges and churches across the United States, ONE members both educate and ask America’s leaders to increase efforts to fight global AIDS and extreme poverty, from the U.S. budget and presidential elections to specific legislation on debt cancellation, increasing effective international assistance, making trade fair, and fighting corruption.”

They have a lot on their plate and much work to do, so what you can do to help is click on this link and sign the ONE Declaration and have you voice heard. It is super easy. If you want to do more you can visit ONE’s “Take Action” page and spread the word, volunteer, shop to support the cause, etc.

One person can make a difference, so do.

-Cara

Reason 89 from, 101 Reasons Why I Am Vegetarian:

Handling livestock these days is risky business, not the least because humans are increasingly contracting diseases from the animals: Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, Nipah virus, bird flu, and SARS are a few examples. “Exotic,” and often endangered, animal cuisine provides the conduit for a global pandemic. In China, wet markets display caged and invariably sickly creatures, such as cobras, civet cats, and anteaters, for consumers who want that “taste of the wild.” In Africa, the bushmeat trade is blamed for the spread of Ebola and AIDS.

Homeless Food

In New York City something we have a lot of is homeless. You see them everywhere, on the stairs of churches, in the subways, reading the paper in the park, having lengthy discourse with each other about current events I know nothing of… I was reading an article about ways to help out homeless people on Charity.org yesterday and one idea was simple, give them restaurant gift certificates so they have a meal in their pocket whenever they want it.

I don’t really agree with the places they suggested you buy the gift certificates from, as all of them were fast, junk food spots. I am a real believer that garbage in, equals garbage out. If you give people food that makes them more tired and depressed, how is that really helpful? I decided to see if I could find national chain restaurants you can buy gift cards from that have higher nutritional value food. It would be a way for the homeless to get food that not only feeds their body, but uplifts their mind and spirit as well. It is important for us to help others to achieve true happiness, as all energy is infinitely connected.

A site I found to purchase restaurant gift certificates at is Restaurant.com. The service they offer is to purchase restaurant gift cards online, using a local restaurant search engine [via zip codes]. They are BBBOnLine members which means they will always resolve any complaints by consumers. They offer a $10 gift card for $3 or a $25 gift card for $10. That’s cool.

I also discovered that at most grocery stores you can buy gift cards at the store [or order them online]. I did some research and created a list of gift card links to grocery stores around the country. I like this idea as it gives someone back the freedom to choose what they want.

Here’s the list:

1. Publix [This store is mostly in the Southeast I think. It was my store growing up in Miami.]
2. Winn-Dixie [Which used to only be in the Southeast when I was growing up too, but now they are everywhere…I think.]
3. Food Lion [I know nothing about these guys! :) ]
4. Jewel-Osco [My old grocery store in Chicago. I think I still have a Jewel-Osco shirt. :P]
5. Shaws [This store has everything!!!]
6. Stop & Shop [This guys are all over the Northeast.]

That’s all I have for now. If you know other grocery stores that offer gift cards let me know and I’ll add them.

Food For Free!!!

-Cara

How To Help End Hunger Using One Piece Of Paper…Easy!

Well not just paper, you’ll also need a printer, an envelope and one stamp. That is not a lot to help end world hunger.

What am I talking about…?

“In September 2000, the 189 countries of the United Nations unanimously agreed to “spare no effort to free our fellow men, women and children from the abject and dehumanizing conditions of extreme poverty,” specifically hunger and the “major diseases that afflict humanity.”

To accomplish this great objective would be expensive, and the price was later estimated at about $195 billion a year. It would be very difficult for this amount of money to be raised by private charities or individuals. It would require the combined efforts of governments throughout the world to do it.

Countries Agree to 0.7% in International Aid

In the March 2002 Monterrey Conference, 22 of the world’s wealthiest countries (listed above) agreed to make “concrete efforts” towards the goal of each giving 0.7 per cent of their national income as aid to the poorest countries. This conference was attended by British Prime Minister Tony Blair, U.S. President George Bush, French President Jacques Chirac, and many other world leaders.

In the September 2002 Johannesburg Summit, these same 22 counties re-affirmed their commitment to reach the 0.7% goal. This would provide enough money to raise the $195 billion per year.

Why the 0.7% Agreement?

The countries made this agreement because they realized that it was hard for each country on its own to give a consistent, minimum level of aid each year. Despite good intentions, a country would find that the aid it wanted to give was eaten away by competing political interests, concern about budget deficits, “problems at home,” “problems abroad,” and so on. So they agreed to a minimal, flat rate that each country could afford each year regardless of its current political or economic state.

The 0.7% figure may sound complicated, but it is actually quite simple. You take the total income earned by all the people in the country and then the government gives 0.7% (seven tenths of one percent) of that as aid. Or to look at it another way: for every $100 earned in the country, the country gives 70 cents in aid.

COUNTRY	For each $100 earned in the country, how much is donated in aid	Aid as % of income	How close the country is to reaching the 0.7% goal
Sweden	103 cents	1.03	Already reached goal
Luxembourg	89 cents	0.89	Already reached goal
Norway	89 cents	0.89	Already reached goal
Netherlands	81 cents	0.81	Already reached goal
Denmark	80 cents	0.80	Already reached goal
Ireland	53 cents	0.53	Scheduled to reach in 2012
United Kingdom	52 cents	0.52	Scheduled to reach in 2013
Belgium	50 cents	0.50	Scheduled to reach in 2010
Austria	48 cents	0.48	Scheduled to reach in 2015
France	47 cents	0.47	Scheduled to reach in 2012
Switzerland	39 cents	0.39	No schedule yet
Finland	39 cents	0.39	Scheduled to reach in 2010
Germany	36 cents	0.36	Scheduled to reach in 2014
Spain	32 cents	0.32	Scheduled to reach in 2012
Canada	30 cents	0.30	No schedule yet
Australia	30 cents	0.30	No schedule yet
New Zealand	27 cents	0.27	No schedule yet
Japan	25 cents	0.25	No schedule yet
Portugal	21 cents	0.21	Scheduled to reach in 2015
Italy	20 cents	0.20	Scheduled to reach in 2015
United States	17 cents	0.17	No schedule yet
Greece	16 cents	0.16	Scheduled to reach in 2015

Source: OECD. The figures for 2007 are due out in April 2008.

How are the countries doing?

As the chart above shows, five countries have already met the goal to give 0.7% of their income in international aid: Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden.In 2002 and 2003, five other countries set up a schedule to give 0.7%: Belgium, Ireland, Finland, France, and Spain.In July 2004, the United Kingdom set up a schedule to give 0.7%.In April 2005, Germany set up a schedule to give 0.7%.In May 2005, Austria, Greece, Italy, and Portugal set up a schedule to give 0.7%.

It was not easy for many of the countries to set up a schedule to reach the 0.7% goal. In some cases, such as Britain and Germany, it took the combined effort of many thousands of citizens writing and petitioning their government to get it done.

The remaining six countries

Only six countries have not yet set up a schedule to give 0.7%. These are Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Switzerland, and the United States. To raise the $195 billion a year, these six will need to reach the goal.These six countries are all democracies. All that is necessary for them to reach the 0.7% goal is for enough of their citizens to show their support. “

Sources: UN Millennium Project, United Nations Development Program (UNDP), The End of Poverty (Jeffrey D. Sachs), Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

I got all this information above from poverty.com. I have bought into the first-web-site-I-see-I-believe drama before and been made a fool of, so this time I decided to do some research. Here is what I found out on the United Nations’ web site about what went down at the Monterrey Conference pertaing to eradicating poverty. More specifically what President Bush said America would do to help eradicate said poverty. You can read that part here and decide for yourself what he said. I’m not here to incite political debates, I’m just trying to figure out what I need to do to make the world a little bit better…which brings me back to the one piece of paper, a printer, an envelope and one stamp…

This is the link for a letter to send to your specific country’s leader, either encouraging then to keep their word [i.e.- America, Canada, Australia, Japan, Switzerland, and New Zealand] or to tell them they rock for making and sticking to their commitment! All you have to do is click on your country, hit print, fold, put in envelope, address [so you will also need a pen], lick, stamp, send…no more poverty…sweet.

I will mail mine tomorrow.

I’m out.

-Cara

Fun One

This one is dedicated to my dad who sent me this site in November ’07.  There is competition, you fight hunger, and learn new stuff…cool…

Here is a blurb about the site…

About FreeRice

FreeRice is a sister site of the world poverty site, Poverty.com.

FreeRice has two goals:

1. Provide English vocabulary to everyone for free.
2. Help end world hunger by providing rice to hungry people for free.

This is made possible by the sponsors who advertise on this site.

Whether you are CEO of a large corporation or a street child in a poor country, improving your vocabulary can improve your life. It is a great investment in yourself.

Perhaps even greater is the investment your donated rice makes in hungry human beings, enabling them to function and be productive. Somewhere in the world, a person is eating rice that you helped provide. Thank you.