As we move from summer berries and greens to potatoes and winter squash, the crops get bigger (and might we add, heavier). Which has us thinking, we’re going to need a bigger bag, or at least a better one, for lugging.
The farmers’ market tote has become as much of a fashion (and political) statement as anything else, and the one with the most hype in recent years is this little project run by former White House niece, Lauren Bush: It’s called FEED, based in New York City.
These bags have been floating around Whole Foods and Barnes & Noble for awhile now, but maybe you’ve doubted their ability to help save the world. Shown in the photo below, Bush is an honorary spokeswoman for the UN World Food Program (WFP). And to her right, FEED VP and co-founder Ellen Gustafson was the New York Communications Officer for the UN WFP and formerly an investigative reporter for ABC News.
With their help, each FEED bag provides free school lunches to children in undernourished communities. And free school lunch, as you can guess, means not just better nourishment but the brain food needed to better absorb all that education. The bags are now available on a sliding scale based on how many lunches or children you’d like to support. A “FEED 1” bag provides one child with a year’s worth of school lunches, “FEED 2” feeds two school children, the “FEED Read 3” bag provides three meals and three native language books, while “FEED 100” allots for one hundred meals to kids in Rwanda. And to get to the root of the problem, there’s also a Dop Bag, which supports farmers and the development of local markets in under-served regions.
Environmental wonks will also be happy to know they’re certified fair-trade and made from 100% reusable, organic material. And we should add, they replace plastic bags.
You can of course buy them at Whole Foods, Barnes & Noble, or right here on the FEED Projects site, where you can also find ways to “Get Active” and donate directly to the cause. And to hear Gustafson speak about the group’s latest project, check this great video below from the TEDxEast conference in New York this May, where she launched The 30 Project — an effort to combat global food inequalities by improving the way we farm in the next 30 years.
