Change by Doing Explore the world of volunteering and service

Do you know about the FEED Projects? Their goal is to sell very simple “FEED” bags, many burlap or simple cotton, with FEED stenciled in a utilitarian, highly visible brand way, and raise awareness of global hunger issues…AND to feed hungry children. The bags are eco-friendly, organically made, and most have a prominent number on the back side, indicating how many children will be fed as a direct result of your purchase. One of the bags is a simple cotton tote, the FEED Haiti bag. For every FEED Haiti bag purchased, 50 school meals will be donated to the United Nations World Food Programme’s School Feeding program in Haiti.

Today were the hotly contested, and if Twitter updates from many people there are accurate, abysmally-run elections in Haiti. Depending on who you ask, many say it is all the same crooks running for office, and there has been such violence, demonstrations, gunshots, intimidating and mask-wearing thugs stalking the polling places, ballots not delivered so people were denied the ability to vote, and more general travesties of a democracy hijacked, that much of a sense of defeat and resignation seemed to prevail. This, of course, is even more tragic with the cholera epidemic and the barely scratched surface of recovery post-earthquake. Any inroads we can make, directly to the people, and bypassing, if necessary, the corrupt government (and I am writing this before election results are even close to being tabulated, so hoping things get better as the day progresses) can be huge. Just as so many here at home feel that our government falls short in some way of representing our interests or needs (regardless of which party is in power), the people of Haiti regularly find themselves completely divorced from representation by the government. It is why so much international aid has been pledged, and so little help has actually reached the people, who are starving to death, dying from preventable disease, still living in tents, and struggling without access to electricity, plumbing/sanitation, clean drinking water, medicine, enough food, or anything even remotely “back to normal.” This holiday season, remember our Haitian family members in our global community.