Food. It has long been a source of gathering and community, a silent facilitator of relationships and celebration. In fact, we as a nation, just celebrated one of our most beautiful reflections of these very things, Thanksgiving! Aside from all that yummy Turkey, the tradition is an expression of gratitude and a time to gather […]

Today’s story focuses on Charity: water! One of my greatest passions is poverty alleviation through access to clean water and thus, I’ve followed Charity: water for some time. Some of you may remember my birthday campaign for clean water last September. Some of you even donated to that campaign! Thank you – more to come on the status of our project in a moment.

Speaking of birthdays, it’s Charity: water’s 12th birthday today!

Three years ago I and some friends visited a local food distribution facility that provides food for those in need. My sincere feelings of compassion for those who don’t have food led me to volunteer that day. Yet to my surprise, I left their facility enraged at what I’d seen. We came to find workers throwing the food we just prepared directly in the trash. To say I was appalled is an understatement and I quickly started firing questions as to why they would throw perfectly good food away when there were people on the streets hungry for something to eat. Met with apathetic responses, my friends and I instantly started to devise a plan to help distribute some of the food to the poor, so they wouldn’t throw it all away. The plan was simple; we’d hand out the food directly to Atlanta’s homeless, ourselves. It was a good idea in theory.