A few months ago my colleague, Amanda Nicewander, wrote a timely CauseMarketing FOCUS blog about the food crisis and East Africa famine that has caused thousands and thousands of deaths. Her story provided a fifty-thousand-foot view of some of the hardest hit regions and featured details on steps Oxfam America is undertaking to fight back. As of this writing, a consortium of global partners and allies continue to respond to the famine. In particular, Oxfam, is committed to this massive relief effort by aiming to provide aid to roughly 3 million people across East Africa.No one entity can solve the food security challenges that exist today.
This Sunday marks the 33rd annual World Food Day. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations celebrates World Food Day each year on October 16, the day on which the Organization was founded in 1945.
World Food Day was established to help raise people’s awareness of problems in food supply and distribution. This years’ World Food Day theme is “food prices – from crisis to stability”, which was selected to shed light on the impact food price swings have on the most vulnerable communities. One goal for World Food Day 2011 is to look seriously at what causes food pricing swings and what can be done to reduce the impact on the weakest members of the global society.
All of us can participate in fostering a conversation to raise awareness of the problem and begin to generate solutions. One simple and fun idea being promoted by Oxfam is to dedicate your “Sunday Dinner to farmers and ask family and friends to think about their food and where it comes from”.
To inspire all of us take action, Oxfam is offering an array of free resources on their website, available through October 21st. Being a bit of a self-proclaimed foodie, I especially liked the free recipe cards from famous foodies and chefs like Giada De Laurentiis and Mark Bittman. There’s even a set of placemats you can use at your own Sunday Supper! But, if the idea of hosting Sunday Dinner is too daunting, check out their robust listing to see if there’s a hunger event already planned in your community.
A multi-faceted cause marketing campaign is in the works from cause marketing leader eBay Giving Works to support and benefit Oxfam America’s hunger campaign. Stay tuned for more details about the late-October launch. This hunger-focused cause marketing campaign could have a major impact as the eBay community has been very generous indeed. As I was reminded when fact-checking for this blog, the eBay Giving Works “impact tracker ticker” rolled well over the $230 million mark for funds raised for U.S. nonprofits since 2003! Ways to give include bidding on sponsored auction items, selecting products from sellers who in advance have agreed to donate anywhere from 10%-100% of their sales to charity, or making a gift donation via PayPal at checkout.
This year, I hope you will find a way to observe World Food Day.
