Why do we give?
In the midst of the holiday season and with the new year fast approaching I hope many of you are feeling generous and beginning to think of your end-of-year giving. In light of this I wanted to take a minute to make my pitch for LEAP. (That’s a donate button in case I wasn’t clear enough ;-).
For the last several years we’ve been donating 20% of our market sales to causes that we care about. For the last two years we’ve been donating exclusively to LEAP. Obviously we think they’re pretty special, here’s why:
They’re the best in business
I believe in LEAP. I believe in the heart and soul of the people who make up the organization and I believe in the strength of its leaders to set a course that is right and true. At the end of the day, it’s all about leadership.
LEAP has consistently stayed true to their deep commitment to food justice in Roanoke. The organization has grown slowly and steadily without veering from their direct connection with the community and the people they work to serve. Even with a fresh infusion of federal funding that, for some, could be distracting in its scope, LEAP has stayed clear eyed about what is important to the people they serve.
They have both breadth and depth
LEAP has an incredibly broad reach with its regional and statewide work but they don’t loose sight of what’s important right here in our community.
Through community organizing, the Mobile Market, and their farm share program (among others), LEAP is focused on long-term, direct action programs focused on increasing food justice here, in our community.
LEAP’s work with the Virginia Fresh Match Program and other federal grants have brought more than $2.5M in funding to our region to provide direct access to healthy food options.
LEAP’s Regional Food System Partnership is bringing together organizations and stakeholders from across the state to work to collectively solve some of our most intractable problems with food insecurity.
It’s the long term partnership that makes a difference
This is incredibly hard work. Food justice is linked to the most intractable problems in our society—socio-economic divisions, structural racism, educational and health disparities just to name a few.
We can’t fix it overnight (or even over the decade). We have to think of the work as a long term, step-by-tiny-step effort to make the little cultural shifts that ultimately add up to a big change for our community.
Staying focused and clear-eyed about the difficulty of the work and the amount of time that it takes to make change takes courage and leadership, and that’s what LEAP has. That’s why we are so committed to supporting their work.
Wow Susanna, that seems like a lot, are you sure? how can you afford that? You might ask.. The answer is pretty simple: yes, we’re sure. We are sure that it won’t work if we don’t try, and we’re sure that if we don’t commit for the long haul it won’t work, so yes we’re sure. And, we’re not trying to get rich (spoiler alert: we already are). We budget carefully, figure out the minimum amount we need to get by, and give everything else away.
I tell you this not as a humble brag or as a shame game; everyone’s situation is different. I just want you to know what we do and why so maybe it can help you think about what you could do. You can probably do more than you think…