Numana, saving the starving.

We all have the opportunity to fulfill others needs, whether it is food, clothing, shelter or the desire to feel accepted. When you can, seize the opportunity to help others fulfill their needs.

Have you looked at The Girl Effect? (girleffect.org). They have a clear and well documented line from educating girls to developing the local economy. Of course, hunger is one of the biggest barriers to educating all children. I would expect much of their thinking abd research would support your goals. Additionally, they make the point that educated girls marry later and have fewer children, addressing your “Why do they keep having babies?” friends.

Yes I have! Thanks!

Yes, I have checked them out and they are terrific! Thanks for turning us there.

Yes, a benevolent “carpe diem” of using every opportunity presented to us to “do good.”

My young granddaughters (14 and 9) are actively engaged with efforts to help others and highly motivated toward service. I support them and help alongside them at times. I worry that they are reaching an age when such endeavors will be deemed “uncool” by their peers, and they will pull back. I think we need to move toward some kind of service experiences as part of our educational system-maybe have all young people fulfill a service requirement as part of completing each level of schooling. Make the menu of choices such that there’s a good chance each youngster can find something she or he really enjoys and so will secondarily find satisfaction in helping others. For example, my older granddaughter loves to cook and would probably like helping in a communal kitchen project serving people in need, especially if she could do it with her best friend who shares that interest. There’s a tension between “volunteering” and completing a “mandatory” service commitment, but if young people get involved in something together they will quickly forget about being “forced” to do it. Working on behalf of others should be as much a part of daily life as seeing to our own needs. In fact, it is one of our needs.

I very much like the thought about “do good.” Thinking about how passionate the nation was in relief efforts immediately following the earthquake in Haiti. If we can just tap deeper into that passion and sustain it long term, that is the challenge. People genuinely want to “do good”; it’s sustainability and momentum that are the challenge.

Would helping people have good meals help you feel good about yourself?

Too bad so much of everyone’s generosity did not end up spent to do the job we all wanted it to!
Check PBS documentary on Haiti after the earthquake. I can’t remember the exact name.

Hey Rick,
This is a great idea! I think ‘sustainability’ has been the coolest trend as of late. Also I agree that everyone wants to do good, they just don’t know where to start. So these events give them, us that opportunity. But most churches do things in support of hunger relief, and I’d like to think Christians know enough that guilt is from the devil. But I still struggle with it when I’m dealing with the mistakes I’ve made with raising my kids!
How about SHARE. It’s a simple overused word, but it doesn’t have to imply that we don’t already do it.
Most of us have hands, let’s just extend an open hand to one another. Not a ‘handout’, but a ‘handful’ ?
Lots of labeling at grocery stores emphasize ‘guilt-free’ food. Maybe you could incorporate that slogan!

Hi Rick,

I have observed that the word that consistently provokes guilt and shame is “should.” I do the best I can to not use it at all, whether in my own thoughts or in conversation with other people.

Words that inspire passion are more difficult to identify, sadly. I think, for me, that it is more of the viewpoint of the person speaking. Is the person speaking of what hasn’t been done, or is he/she speaking of what CAN be done, what IS being done, what we HOPE and BELIEVE we can do.

I think the unfortunate paradigm we face when trying to speak to people about hunger and poverty is that it seems so far removed from us as Americans. And what a blessing that is! But we become so detached from it that it is easy to buffer ourselves, to think that “someone else will do something about it.” It is just so easy to forget that people are fundamentally the same, no matter where they live. That people starving in a far away nation could just as easily be our own friends, relatives, children. That we didn’t choose to whom we were born or where we were born, just as they didn’t.

Peter,
These are great ideas and it will encourage you to know that at post-secondary levels of education, “service learning” is becoming more of a focal point. Kansas Campus Compact out of Manhattan is such an organization and we are partnering with them in developing more hands on ways in the future. What we are all discovering is that there is growing interest in young people to serve in practical ways and so the educational system is responding quite aggressively.
And the “menu” you suggest is very good because we all have varied skill sets and want to contribute that which we are best at doing. I remember being in NIcaragua and coming across a lady from the US who was in her late fifties, sitting under a shade tree sweating profusely in the 100+ heat. She told me she was taking a break from laying concrete blocks for an orphanage with a team from the states. I asked her what she did in the states and she told me she was a nurse. Wow! What a waste of talent! We were in a village where sick children needed all kinds of attention, but she was laying blocks. It taught me a very good lesson about stewarding people’s talents.
Thanks for the input.

In the business world, as you know, it’s called “ROI”- return on investment. People want to help but they also want to know that the valuable resource they are sharing- their own precious time- has a positive impact. You’re so right, sustainability and momentum are huge challenges and, unfortunately, it seems that the media often decides that for us by what they choose to report on. For example, the crisis in the Horn of Africa with over 11 million people seriously starving just hasn’t made the news here in the states. That’s just too bad.

Absolutely! That’s exactly what we like at Numana with our international work and our emerging domestic work is to provide nutritious meals for hungry people. As USAID director Dr. Raj Shah says, “food without nutrition is immoral.”

As is typical in a lot of disasters, the ambulance chasers and carpetbaggers rush in to capitalize on someone else’s misery.
While there are several organizations that have not delivered as promised, there are some that have done a stellar job and are continuing to do so. Our partner, The Salvation Army, for example, is very deliberate about spending each dollar raised for a project on that project. Money that they raised is being used to build hospitals, schools, children centers, and housing. The challenge is the Haitian government. The government is such a slow moving organism that it is very hard to get anything accomplished in the country so organizations that have money ready to spend, have a hard time doing good with it long term because of road blocks the government puts in their way. That’s why its important to give to organizations like the Salvation Army who really do live by their motto: “Doing the most good.” I’ve VERY impressed with them.

The idea of “sharing” really came to me as a motivator when I started Numana. I had been in Nicaragua and read of 10 million children severely malnourished in Central America then I was in the states reading about 10 million US children who were obese. My first thought was, “We need to share.”
And I believe that almost everyone wants to share. The “how” is the challenge.
“Guilt free hunger relief.” I like that the way that sounds! Thanks for your comments.

Laura,
I heartily agree that the right words are so important. Our marketing department spends a lot of time wrestling with words and how we put them together in a fashion that does provide hope. We also talk about it in images we share. While the emaciated child ready to die does stir the emotions, it creates despair. I have one particular image that we are using more and more of a child in the refugee camp in Dedaab, Kenya that I visited. She has her little fingers in her mouth and is looking straight at me while her mother is holding her. If you enlarge the photo, you can see the reflection in her eyes of myself, Ambassador Tony Hall, and 2 other people. That image I’ve titled “Hope”, because they say in many places that “when food comes, hope comes.” Our reflection in her eyes also speak of what you say- people far way could just as easily be our friends. And because of our globalization, they are certainly becoming our neighbors. Thanks for the comments.

We came across The Girl Effect a few weeks back and love the idea behind it, plus they make it look really cool.

Peter, I was just thinking about volunteering as a blessing to the volunteer. I’m better at both consistent volunteering AND financial giving when I feel blessed by it, as well. It may seem like a selfish way to look at it, but I think when you’re feeling joy about the time or money you’re sharing, then you’re more likely to want to continue – just as in the example you give of your granddaughter and her friends.