As I was thinking of what to blog about this week the idea that came to mind was exercise. The problem was, although an avid exerciser myself (though I have no illusions of being any sort of expert in the field), it almost seemed counterintuitive to write about burning calories on a hunger blog. So why is it that I can’t seem to shake the idea? Here’s my attempt at that answer:

When I think of ELCA World Hunger I don’t just think of our projects which help people to grow and attain the food they need to survive. I don’t just think about water collection systems and domestic hunger grants. In fact, I don’t always think about food! That’s because I also think about advocacy, education, simplicity and sustainability. I know that these are often based on food and water issues, but ultimately our concern is the good health of God’s people, and that includes you and me. Last summer as an intern I learned a lot about domestic obesity and food quality. I also followed the map in our office as the Tour de Revs bicycled across the United States raising awareness for hunger, poverty and wellness issues. Overall, I discovered that ELCA World Hunger isn’t just trying to feed people in the literal sense, “feeding” is also figurative. People need spiritual, mental, emotional and movement food as well. Movement food? Don’t worry this isn’t a term you should know, or one that I have ever even heard someone use, I made it up. What I am referring to is our God-given gift of movement. While we all have different ability levels many of us enjoy running, jumping, walking, climbing, crawling and every other form of movement you can think of. It is my experience that there is something very fulfilling about movement; for me, exercise can even have a spiritual impact. Sometimes, however, movement food can double as emotional food. Remember back when you played double-dutch at recess? Games can also provide the fruits of laughter, social interaction and fun.

Exercise can also be simple and sustainable. You don’t need much to jump rope, go for a run or walk your dog. Snowball fights and hourlong games of freeze tag only require imagination and weather cooperation. In my experience these simple activities can help to sustain both good health and big smiles.

It’s also a lesson, because when we value movement food we teach others through our actions. Exercise, drinking clean water and eating nutritious foods are all powerful ways to practice good health and to thank God for the gift of our bodies.

~Lana

They are cardboard, small and round. We all have them, often in multiple rooms of our home, and all too often…they stack up in our garbage bins. What are they? Toilet paper tubes! As silly as it may seem my pet peeve is having nowhere in the restroom to put a used up toilet paper roll’s tube (except the trash) when it’s ready to be switched out and prime for reusing or recycling. Last week I finally put an extra receptacle in my bathroom to collect these tubes in one place. Now they are prime for recycling! Today I also found some great ideas for how to reuse toilet paper tubes from the World Environmental Organization and The Green Parent’s websites.

Here are my favorites:

• Use in place of a peat pot. Fill with potting soil, place in a plastic butter/ice cream tub, plant the seed and water. When the plant sprouts, plant the seedling (tube and all) in the ground. The tube rots away.
• Stuff an extra set of stockings into a tube and keep in your desk drawer at work, your glove compartment, etc. in case of a run.
• Stuff a few plastic bags into the tube and then place the tube in the glove compartment of your car. It will keep them tidy and on-hand for when you need them.
• Use for storing long pieces of ribbon which have been saved from packages. This will keep the ribbon smooth.
• Donate old toilet paper or paper towel tubes to your local school or library to use as craft projects.

So whether you reuse your toilet paper tubes for gardening or ribbons, or you recycle them straight away, thanks for keeping them out of the trash!

I just got home from a little trip to get my Christmas cards for the season. Hopefully they will all fly out in the post just in time for Christmas, if not, well then I hope the recipients enjoy a little extended Christmas cheer. This errand of buying Christmas cards, however, was quite special.

My brother is friends with a very artistic couple who live in the next town. They are kind and super fun to hang out with. The wife happens to be an amazing artist, and creates the most interesting and beautiful greeting cards I have discovered to date. Needless to say, I bypassed the store and went straight to her dining room table for my small batch of Holiday cards this year. Of course she also sells her cards through distributors, but it was fun to buy them from the artist herself, and enjoy a little farmer’s market pumpkin pie at the same time.

All this to say there is more to the cards than meets the eye. Each card is printed on recycled paper and 10 percent of the profits are donated to organizations which support peace, compassion, education & sustainability – it’s like each card has a little heart. This little bit of information made my card buying experience just that much better. I hope that each card brings lots of cheer to my loved ones, but I am also very thankful for the 10 percent which will be donated, because when you put it all together one little card equals a whole lot of happiness.

Happy Holidays and I hope that everyone, whether on purpose or by chance, will find a favorite brand of “greeting cards with a heart”.

~Lana

Last night a winter storm knocked the power out at my home, and I began to think about things…

• As I pulled out my wind-up flashlight I began to think about renewable resources. If I can power my flashlight (and keep reading my book) with the simple turn of my wrist, what else can I power that easily?
• Luckily the outage started in the evening and was fixed by morning, a couple of years ago the area experienced a storm which caused power outages for a week. What if I didn’t have a cold refrigerator to keep food in? How would that change what I ate and how much time I spent getting and making food?
• The rain poured and the wind howled but the water treatment plants were okay. Sometimes, however, in the really bad storms the water systems get tainted and we either have to boil water or use bottled water for a few days. We often have a supply of clean water in the garage for just such instances. What if we always had to boil water? What if we didn’t have any access to clean water storage?
• I did enjoy making cinnamon toast on the wood stove in my living room, I felt a little bit like a pioneer. I began to think, however, about my brothers and sisters in Christ around the world who cook every meal over the fire and also use this as their only form of heat.

In this winter storm I realized how lucky I am to have a roof, central heating, refrigeration and clean water. It also makes me think more about what I can do for others – like giving regularly, learning about renewable energy, being a good steward of creation’s resources and advocating for important justice issues. God works in mysterious ways – even through power outages.

~ Lana

p.s. For those of you who read last week’s Foodball blog, you’ll be happy to know that the competition raised over 989,000 pounds of food this year!

I love the idea of voting with your dollar; the simplicity of saying yes or no to a company’s products and practices based on consumer demand. In today’s American society so much is driven by supply and demand. I originally wanted to provide readers with a list of companies that are socially and environmentally responsible. The list would give you the power to make informed shopping decisions that help to make a positive impact for producers, manufacturers and suppliers of quality products as well as a greater impact on the larger supply chain and idea of trade. My plan was to do some research, talk to friends and get the low down myself. Instead, I was shopping at Greenheart, a local Chicago fair trade shop, when my boyfriend pointed out a book to me – The Better World Shopping Guide. Bingo, someone had already done the research! So I give to you a link to the book’s contents and a small preview of what can be found inside. From groceries to cell phones and shoes, happy shopping!

The Top Ten Best Companies
*as listed by The Better World Shopping Guide

1. Seventh Generation
2. Working Assets
3. Eden Foods
4. Organic Valley
5. Clif Bar
6. Honest Tea
7. Patagonia
8. Tom’s of Maine
9. Ben & Jerry’s
10. Aveda

~Post by Lana~

Paul Hawken gave the commencement address for the University of Portland earlier this month, and it’s making the rounds. I thought it was brilliant. Here’s a link to the address.

Hunger Rumblings will periodically highlight the work of organizations that received financial support through an ELCA Hunger Education/Advocacy grant in 2008.  We hope you are as inspired by these stories of our faith in action as we have been!

CREA – Center for Reflection, Education and Action (www.crea-inc.org)

2008 ELCA World Hunger Education Grant Recipient

Poverty, and the hunger it causes, is directly related to the ability of workers and their families to achieve sufficient income.  CREA works to bridge the gap between cooperative artisans in countries around the world and consumers in the United States.  We educate U.S. consumers about Fair Trade, expose them to Fair Trade-Peace Trade products made by global artisans, and create a market so that these workers can achieve a sufficient income.  We have named our program “Fair Trade-Peace Trade” to help consumers understand that economic, social and environmental peace are just as important as cessation of fighting with weapons.

Our educational message helps consumers understand that the “lowest” price is not always the “best” price, and that the people who bear the true costs of cheap products are the workers who produced that product.  In our Fair Trade work, we are able to tell that story and challenge those who are buying the craft items, coffee, tea, and chocolate to understand that what we buy and how we buy directly affect the lives of men, women and children around the world.

Our reports on Sustainable Living Wages are available for congregations and schools and directly connect the Fair Trade – Peace Trade products with the goal of sustainable living wages in countries around the globe.

We have also developed a Systemic Analysis program which teaches people how to understand globalization, its inequities and impacts.  It also highlights the economic components of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (www.udhr.org/UDHR/default.htm).  We continually create story boards and educational materials for use by various congregations and groups.

CREA works to ensure that global artisans have the means to feed their children, send them to school, and provide access to better healthcare.  Working with these global artisans reminds us that Fair Trade is a year round commitment, not just during the holiday season. 

To learn more visit the CREA website at: www.crea-inc.org

Ruth Rosenbaum, Executive Director

posted by Erin Cummisford

Literally. We have new light from above. Check out the picture of my family room. That bright circle on the ceiling isn’t an electric light. It’s the sun! In the past couple of weeks, we’ve had three solar tubes installed in our house – two in the family room and one in the kitchen.

If you follow this blog, you know we’ve been talking about coal and electricity recently. I’d love to say that my family’s decision to install solar tubes was in response to our desire to use less electricity, less energy, less coal. And that was a consideration. But the bigger reason was more self-serving: I wanted more natural light in some of the darker areas of our house just because I like natural light. The way our house is situated, we don’t get nearly as much of it as I would choose, and I’ve always wished for more. We have considered skylights from time to time, but they always seemed too expensive and work-intensive, what with all the drywalling and painting that’s required with their addition. But then we learned about solar tubes! We could have them less expensively than skylights, and each one took only about an hour to install (done by a professional). That was it! The result is wonderful. Unfortunately, I don’t have before and after pictures, but you can get a sense of the increased light from the shadow cast by the pillow onto the arm of the couch. That most certainly was not there before.

What I love about this little anecdote is that one largely selfish act is so beneficial! By getting something I wanted – more natural light – I’m using less electricity, which reduces my use of coal, lowers the demand on the power grid, and hopefully lowers my electric bill. It also supports jobs in the “green economy,” as we purchased a solar product and paid a professional to install it. And it is another step in our household’s efforts to live more sustainably. I find it all very hopeful. Or maybe I’m just giddy from all that natural light.

One of my ongoing frustrations in trying to be a better consumer is that it’s pretty much impossible to judge what the best choice is without spending hours of research on every little purchase. I’ve blogged about this before. Try this: pick up something around you right now. Anything. What is it made out of? Where did the component parts come from? What inputs went into manufacturing it? Does it contain any chemicals? How were the people who made the item treated? What is required to maintain the item, and what are the impacts of that maintenance? The questions are endless and unanswerable, and apply to nearly everything. So we do the best we can with the information we have and hope for the best. Or we quit trying and just buy whatever we want.

Enter Good Guide! Imagine my delight when I read on their web site,

“GoodGuide strives to provide the world’s largest and most reliable source of
information on the health, environmental, and social impacts of products and
companies. GoodGuide’s mission is to help you find safe, healthy, and green
products that are better for you and the planet. From our origins as a UC
Berkeley research project, GoodGuide has developed into a totally independent
“For-Benefit” company. We are committed to providing the information you need to
make better decisions, and to ultimately shifting the balance of information and
power in the marketplace.”

It’s a new organization. Apparently they’re aggregating all of this data and summing it up into product ratings. They seem to be working hard to ensure their data sources and evaluating teams are credible, and they’re considering not just health, or environmental, or social impacts, but all of them. Exactly what I need! My own extensive research is not practical, but looking stuff up on a web site is. This one has a long way to go; there are lots of products in the world in need of ratings. But it’s a start, and I’m sure glad to see it.

A few months ago, I read Hot, Flat, and Crowded by Thomas Friedman. About halfway through the book, he describes what life will be like in the energy-efficient future. He tells about how your house has a Smart Black Box (SBB) that manages all of your home’s energy usage – lighting, temperature, appliances, TV, etc. The SBB can tell you how much energy each of your appliances uses, and each appliance can be programmed to run when you’d like. Many people choose to have them run whenever electricity is the cheapest – usually nights and weekends. This is possible because in the future, utility companies offer different rates and plans that correspond with demand and load. So it’s possible to keep your costs down by using you washing machine when demand for electricity is lower, and shutting them down when it’s higher. You win in cost, the utility companies win by spreading out demand and load, the environment wins because fewer power plants are needed and renewable energy sources can play a bigger role.

Imagine my surprise when I received an offer in the mail last week from my electric company offering me this service! I had no idea the future was so close!

Now, I’ve only summarized a small part of what Friedman describes in his book, and my electric company has offered me only part of my summary. But it was close enough to get my attention! For a small monthly fee, they will install a meter that records our hourly electricity usage. They will also publish online how much electricity costs each hour of the day. And while we can’t program our appliances to run at certain times, we can look at the rates and choose to run the washing machine when electricity is cheaper. If you sign up, you have to stay in the program for a year.

My husband and I looked at each other and said, “Should we do it?” Philosophically, we are both in favor, but I realized as we deliberated that the future is not yet here. There’s just not enough information. Our electric company can’t tell us anything about our various appliances’ current energy usage, so how big a difference will shifting our dishwashing hours make? Are we going to save a couple of cents? Several dollars? Will we save enough to make up for the monthly cost of the new, hourly meter? Will we end up paying more than we do now when, in August, the air conditioner runs pretty constantly and we’re stuck with high-demand rates during the day? Is this actually a stupid financial decision? Even though we favor the concept, we hesitated.

But in the end, we decided to try it. I like Friedman’s vision, and someone has to be an early-adopter on the path to the energy-efficient future. Why not us? If we’re lucky, it will save us money, too. So we mailed in the enrollment form. I’ll keep you posted.