Bill Gates gives $300 million to help end poverty

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced that it would commit over $300 million towards efforts to help reduce hunger and poverty in Africa and South Asia.

Details from the LA Times:

The $306-million commitment over four years included $164.5 million to the Nairobi, Kenya-based Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, for efforts to improve soils and help small farmers boost crop yields. The Rockefeller Foundation contributed an additional $15 million to the effort.

Smaller Gates Foundation grants will assist research on hardier rice strains, provide better irrigation methods to small farmers and help develop superior coffee beans for export.

Grants totaling $48 million, to Little Rock, Ark.-based Heifer International and CARE, in Atlanta, are meant to help dairy farmers and landless peasants in East Africa and Bangladesh improve milk quality and build access to markets.

"If we are serious about ending extreme hunger and poverty around the world, we must be serious about transforming agriculture for small farmers," Bill Gates, co-chairman of the foundation, said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

I wish I knew more details about how the money gets to the individual farmers and how this will change agricultural practices for the better, but I'm glad to see them giving to where there is a need.

New York City helps the hungry

Unfortunately, as individuals, we sometimes fail to meet the basic needs of the hungry around us. It's at moments like these that government must step up to act as the compassionate force that helps alleviate the suffering of the people.

In last week's NY Daily News I read the following article about Mayor Bloomberg's initiative to eliminate hunger in NYC:

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2007/11/26/2007-11-26_bloomberg_city_to_give_1m_to_soup_kitche.html

Bloomberg: City to give $1M to soup kitchens, provide hunger assistance

BY DAVE GOLDINER
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Monday, November 26th 2007, 4:00 AM

The city will give $1 million more to soup kitchens and food pantries and plans a new 311 system to provide information on hunger assistance, Mayor Bloomberg said Sunday.

"Basic human compassion fuels everything we do to eradicate hunger in New York," Bloomberg said on his weekly radio show.

The extra cash will help the 500 or so community groups keep up with inflation and provide more nutritious meals to the needy.

Most of the money came from eliminating fraud and waste in existing programs, Bloomberg said.

Bloomberg also said city workers will now staff a hunger hotline. Previously, callers would get shunted to an automated line.

He reminded New Yorkers they can drop off canned goods and other nonperishable items at any police stationhouse or fire station until Jan. 4. All donations will go to City Harvest

Smart Chicken

Back in July I received a forwarded email from my-soon-to-be-Uncle Steve that he had received from my-soon-to-be-Uncle Brad in Lincoln, Nebraska. The story was about a local Chicken plant that made a promise to deliver 2000 lbs of chicken a week to the City Mission for as long as they are in business.

The owner of Smart Chicken decided privately to share with the poor.

Apparently the City Mission has a distribution center that gives away food, clothes, and furniture to about 30,000 people a year. That's more than 10% of the population of Lincoln!

Uncle Brad pointed out in this email that with this donation, Lincoln might become the first city in America where "there is no hunger among the impoverished or the working poor." He explained that Pastor Tom of the City Mission was hoping that the momentum of this donation would encourage other businesses in Lincoln to make similar donations. That would be grand!

In his closing, Uncle Brad kept his hopes high and added, "When your town's Christian businesses are doing this let's talk about eliminating world hunger too!"

I'd like to simply add, "Let's do it!"