It’s November – the perfect time to start jotting down your appointments and events on a new 2010 calendar. Here to help is the third annual edition of the Whole Planet Foundation calendar featuring beautiful photographs of inspiring entrepreneurs from Peru, Bolivia, India, Haiti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Guatemala, Thailand, Nepal, Indonesia, the United States and East Timor.
This isn’t your run-of-the-mill calendar! This one not only helps you keep track of your busy life but also helps you save on your favorite products with over $30 in coupons and ALL PROCEEDS from the sale of these calendars benefit Whole Planet Foundation microcredit clients. All that for $2. Seriously, $2.
Last year, our shoppers purchased $72,000 in calendars and empowered 1,775 poor women and their family members with microloans to create or expand a home-based business and create prosperity. These women live in communities where the products you purchase at Whole Foods Market are sourced. We’re hoping to raise a bit more this year so we can empower 2,000 more women with an opportunity to change their own lives and lift themselves out of poverty.
And if that wasn’t incentive enough, our vendor partners came through with some great coupons to sweeten the deal. $3 off from New Chapter, $3 off Seventh Generation, $2 off GoodBelly, $1 off Ben & Jerry’s, $1 off Nature’s Path, $1 off Muir Glen, $1 off Whole Trade Guarantee Vegan Sugar, just to name a few. You can see the whole coupon list for more incentive.
Pick up your copy (or two or three!) of the Whole Planet Foundation 2010 Calendar in your local U.S. Whole Foods Market store now through January. Thanks for your help in making this a great season of giving… in more ways than one.
A huge shout out goes to everyone who supported the Whole Planet Foundation’s 2009 Prosperity Campaign. Thanks to the generosity of shoppers and team members, over $1.8 million was donated – 100% of which goes to microlending programs! (Remember, Whole Foods Market covers all operating expenses of Whole Planet Foundation).
Our Team Members put lots of energy into sharing information about Whole Planet Foundation with our customers. As an incentive and reward for all of their hard work, several Team Members were treated to a trip to Guatemala where they met local participants and experienced the power of microcredit firsthand. (Trips paid for by Whole Foods Market – not on the dime of the Foundation!).
Here’s a video that takes us along on a bit of their journey.
Whole Planet Foundation is funding microcredit in 15 communities around the globe that supply products to Whole Foods Market, including Bolivia, Costa Rica, East Timor, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Nepal, Nicaragua, Thailand, Peru and the United States. Over $6 million in Whole Planet Foundation microloans has been disbursed through implementing partners to more than 50,000 poor women, with a repayment rate of 97%, enabling them to create or expand small home-based businesses and lift themselves out of poverty.
Stay tuned for information on our 2010 Prosperity Campaign – beginning in February.
Join Whole Planet Foundation in Peña Blanca, an impoverished, rural community in the Lake Atitlán region of Guatemala where Whole Foods Market sources coffee. To empower this community to lift itself out of poverty, Whole Planet Foundation and Grameen Trust initiated a microlending project here in 2006, and the next year Whole Foods Market Team Members began providing community service like teaching literacy skills and providing meals for the children of this Mayan community.
We, The Green Children, are very happy to announce the release of our single and music video Hear Me Now to help support the work of Whole Planet Foundation and raise awareness about the power of microcredit to help people lift themselves out of poverty.
After our first trip to Bangladesh, we were so inspired by Grameen Bank, its leader Prof. Muhammad Yunus and the power of small loans that we knew we had to write a song! After the song was written, we knew that a video had to be made and this was the result. It was made in Bangladesh to celebrate the incredible women who are clients of Grameen Bank (known as “the bank for the poor”).
Hear Me Now is also available on iTunes, and we are donating 50% of our proceeds to help fund a Whole Planet Foundation and Grameen Trust microlending project in Kerala, India, aiming to extend access to microcredit to over 22,000 impoverished people.
Help us spread a positive message: the poor don’t always need a hand out, but with a hand up, great things can happen!
Thank you so much,
Milla Sunde & Tom Bevan (The Green Children)
The Green Children, Milla and Tom, in Guatemala with Whole Planet Foundation President Philip Sansone
Here’s a huge shout out to the amazing team members at Whole Foods Market. It has been two years since we started the Whole Planet Foundation Team Member Giving program. This is where team members can choose to have money donated from each paycheck to empower the poorest of the poor with a chance to lift themselves out of poverty. As you probably know by now, Whole Planet Foundation was created by Whole Foods Market with the mission of alleviating poverty through microcredit in global communities that supply our stores with product. This mission resonates with over 12,000 team members who make a difference every two weeks.
Over 12,000 team members have given
$745,000 through their paychecks to empower
19,000 impoverished people with access to microcredit
I love my job at Whole Planet Foundation. Every day is an opportunity to help empower the poor through microcredit in communities around the globe where Whole Foods Market sources product. Whole Planet Foundation funds microlending projects in communities where Whole Foods Market sources coffee from communities in East Timor, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Indonesia, Kenya and Nicaragua; bananas from communities in Costa Rica and Honduras; tea from India and Nepal; rice from Thailand; and produce and dairy from the New York City area. Microcredit is small loans – around $200 – provided to impoverished individuals who use the funds to start their own home-based businesses to lift themselves out of poverty, like these women. Read the rest of this entry »
I am so proud to be one of over 9,200 Whole Foods Market team members who donate through payroll deduction to help support the work of our Whole Planet Foundation. The Foundation has various funding sources, and our team members are giving over $20,000 each payday to fund microlending in Whole Foods Market communities around the world.
Whole Foods Market Tanasbourne store is # 1 in Team Member Giving participation at 76%
That’s an amazing outpouring of care and concern and it doesn’t stop there. Since there is 97-99% repayment of the microloans, the money raised revolves, giving more and more people access to capital so that they can fund small businesses that lift them out of poverty and they pay the loan back, which gives even more people the opportunity to do the same.
I was so excited when Whole Planet Foundation asked me to edit videos that were shot in Nicaragua and Honduras. I spent two years in Nicaragua as a Peace Corps volunteer, so as I watched the raw footage, I immediately thought of people and places that will always be near and dear to me. I could tell so many stories about people I met and places I’ve seen, but the tone of those stories would not be one of sadness or hardship. The stories, much like those of the Whole Planet Foundation borrowers, would be about people who are gregarious, generous and proud. The stories that we are sharing with you are stories that are all too common in Central America. It’s a wonder that many of these countries still exist given that they have faced so much adversity in the recent past, between civil wars and natural disasters. Maybe even more incredible is the resiliency of the people and their determination to achieve a better future through hard work and perseverance.
As a young boy I’d often watch the early evening news whilst waiting for my favorite television show to start. I remember being shocked and confused by some of the harrowing images of human poverty I saw around the world.
From a guest blogger for the Whole Planet Foundation, Alex Crane.
Maria Juracán is waiting for me outside her home. She waves as Manuel Mandoza and I walk down the steep dirt path to Peña Blanca, a farming community isolated by the mountainous topography of the Western Guatemalan Highlands. My legs are stiff and I’m walking clumsily; I’ve just ridden a motorcycle for the first time. And what a first! The road up from Panajachel to Peña Blanca is windy, narrow, and chaotic (buses tend to honk at blind corners rather than decrease in speed). I took to clenching my legs to the bike with all the strength I could muster. I smile and wave back, trying to contain my excitement; today brings another first: my first interview with a Grameen Guatemala borrower. Read the rest of this entry »
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Last year, our shoppers purchased $72,000 in calendars and empowered 1,775 poor women and their family members with microloans to create or expand a home-based business and create prosperity. These women live in communities where the products you purchase at Whole Foods Market are sourced. We’re hoping to raise a bit more this year so we can empower 2,000 more women with an opportunity to change their own lives and lift themselves out of poverty.
$3 off from New Chapter, $3 off Seventh Generation, $2 off GoodBelly, $1 off Ben & Jerry’s, $1 off Nature’s Path, $1 off Muir Glen, $1 off Whole Trade Guarantee Vegan Sugar, just to name a few. You can see the whole coupon list for more incentive.
Here’s a huge shout out to the amazing team members at Whole Foods Market. It has been two years since we started the Whole Planet Foundation Team Member Giving program. This is where team members can choose to have money donated from each paycheck to empower the poorest of the poor with a chance to lift themselves out of poverty. As you probably know by now, Whole Planet Foundation was created by Whole Foods Market with the mission of alleviating poverty through microcredit in global communities that supply our stores with product. This mission resonates with over 12,000 team members who make a difference every two weeks.
