Posts tagged as:

poverty

Ending World Hunger, One Grilled Cheese at a Time

by Andrea Hill on October 23, 2009

While at the Opportunity Collaboration last week, I had the opportunity to meet many fascinating people doing great things in the world. Among them was Kern Beare from Feel Good.

Feel Good World | Do good. FeelGood.The Feel Good mission is to “transform students into skilled, life-long social entrepreneurs—“changemakers” who are ready to respond to the world’s most pressing issues in innovative, strategic and compassionate ways. And we do it one grilled cheese at a time.”

The premise is simple: student volunteers offer up grilled sandwiches for a donation to The Hunger Project. The program is currently supported by individual donations and grants, with a plan to become self-sustaining in the future.

The FeelGood program is currently running on over 20 college campuses, and it has been well-received by all those who benefit. These aren’t your mom’s grilled cheese sandwiches, either (although I’m sure those were delicious). At UVM, the menu includes specialty sandwiches that layer on onions, spinach and other great ingredients. They even offer a dessert sandwich with apples, cheese and cinnamon sugar on top!

UVM FeelGood Menu

UVM FeelGood Menu

FeelGood offers caring individuals the ability to help their cause both off- and online. FeelGoodWorld.org allows site visitors to register to earn cheese points they can redeem for prizes. This means that even those not near an existing Grilled Cheese Deli can help do their part to ending world hunger.

This is just one example of the interesting, innovative ideas I learned about at Opportunity Collaboration. Every delegate had a heart-warming story or an exciting proposal as to how we can help make the world a better place. It was truly an amazing space to collaborate and share, and I know great good will come of the event.

Tagged as: collaboration, feelgood, grilled cheese, hunger, poverty

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Convene, Connect, Communicate for Change – The Opportunity Collaboration

by Andrea Hill on October 14, 2009

World Poverty Day is this Saturday, Oct.17th. Along with Worldways co-founders Maureen Cronin and Mark Marosits, I will be attending the Opportunity Collaboration for several days focusing on this important issue.

In a focused and intensive series of working business meetings, social entrepreneurs, nonprofit leaders, social financiers, grant-makers and agents of change will explore unprecedented levels of collaboration, identify opportunities for leveraging resources across organizations and accelerate proven models for reducing poverty.

No one needs told that world poverty is a serious issue. Yet how to make a difference? If a traditional conference differentiates between the speakers (’the knowers’) and the audience (’the learners’), the Opportunity Collaboration unites all Delegates (as ‘doers’). There are no passive learners: all attendees will be active participants in analyzing and attacking this issue.

The four day event will be intense, with large and small group activities and discussions. I will do my best to capture the experience and learnings as the week goes on.

Tagged as: opportunity collaboration, poverty

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