+
More

The awesome way one woman is tackling the food waste and hunger crises in America.

True
State Farm

More than 42 million people go to bed hungry in America. To Jasmine Crowe, that's just baffling.

"Some of my friends, people that are close to me, didn’t have food," Crowe says.

As someone who cooks food for a living, she knew she had to do something to help shrink that number.


Crowe explaining the reason behind her mission to help solve food waste and hunger. All photos via State Farm.

She started by hosting pop-up dinners for people who are food insecure. But these weren't just ordinary dinners.

Along with her volunteers, she served three-course to five-course meals, similar to what you'd find at a nice restaurant. They even created menus for people to order from to round out the dining experience.

The goal was to remove each person's food worries for a night and help them just focus on the positives.

However, as the endeavor grew, it started to become expensive to sustain.

"Me and my best friend who’s also a chef, we would make these menus based off of what was on sale at the grocery stores," Crowe says.

Crowe with a fellow chef and volunteer.

That's when she had her epiphany — why not try to solve the hunger crisis with the food waste crisis?

"We waste 72 billion pounds of perfectly good food every year in this country," Crowe says. She couldn't think of a better scenario than one in which one problem could actually solve the other.

Crowe created a sustainable waste management app called Goodr , which " redirects surplus food from restaurants, event centers, airports, and businesses to the millions of people who are food insecure."

Waste not want not, right?

If food suppliers have leftover food that they're just going to throw away, all they have to do is put out an alert through Goodr, and someone will pick it up and take it to organizations that feed the hungry.

For Ryan Whitten, executive chef at Turner Broadcasting, the importance of Goodr's mission hit him around the holidays.

It was perfect timing because, according to Crowe, that's when hunger tends to spike.

Crowe with Whitten.

It ended up being a wonderful experience for everyone involved.

Not only do businesses earn valuable tax deductions for their donations, they can actually see the good it's doing people in real time.

"She would literally take our food and about 20 to 30 minutes later, I would get a picture back with this is where it’s going to, these are the people it’s helping," Whitten recalls.

Thanks to partnerships with large suppliers, Goodr's been able to serve 80,000 meals, including over 2,000 special holiday meals, to people around the country since 2013.

But Crowe's work isn't just helping food insecure people. It's inspiring people of all ages to do more for the less fortunate.

For example, every holiday they do an initiative called Kids Give Back, which offers the younger generation an opportunity to volunteer as servers for pop-up dinners.

A volunteer in the Kids Give Back program.

What's more, the kids who go through it seem to genuinely appreciate the experience.

"I think when we put them in a position where they’re actually serving, it changes their lives more than they know," Crowe says.

Goodr is also inspiring volunteers to get out and start charitable organizations of their own.

"I can’t tell you how many people have started volunteering with us, and then said, 'Hey Jasmine, I love doing this so much, now I’m starting a nonprofit organization,'" Crowe says.

It's going to take more than one organization to solve issues like hunger and food waste, but thanks to Crowe's inspiring work, a serious dent's been made.

Volunteers at a Goodr pop-up dinner.

When you do something meaningful to help others, it creates a ripple effect. Crowe has seen this effect firsthand and has made it part of her mission to keep moving the needle forward.

"Giving creates a cycle of love," explains Crowe. "Everyone benefits. When everyone’s doing something to help someone else, no one loses."

Watch Crowe's whole story here:

Help for the Holidays: Goodr

She knew hunger was an issue, but when she realized that even some of her close friends were struggling with it, she took action.

Posted by Upworthy on Monday, December 4, 2017
True

Making new friends as an adult is challenging. While people crave meaningful IRL connections, it can be hard to know where to find them. But thanks to one Facebook Group, meeting your new best friends is easier than ever.

Founded in 2018, NYC Brunch Squad brings together hundreds of people who come as strangers and leave as friends through its in-person events.

“Witnessing the transformative impact our community has on the lives of our members is truly remarkable. We provide the essential support and connections needed to thrive amid the city's chaos,” shares Liza Rubin, the group’s founder.

Despite its name, the group doesn’t just do brunch. They also have book clubs, seasonal parties, and picnics, among other activities.

NYC Brunch Squad curates up to 10 monthly events tailored to the specific interests of its members. Liza handles all the details, taking into account different budgets and event sizes – all people have to do is show up.

“We have members who met at our events and became friends and went on to embark on international journeys to celebrate birthdays together. We have had members get married with bridesmaids by their sides who were women they first connected with at our events. We’ve had members decide to live together and become roommates,” Liza says.

Members also bond over their passion for giving back to their community. The group has hosted many impact-driven events, including a “Picnic with Purpose” to create self-care packages for homeless shelters and recently participated in the #SquadSpreadsJoy challenge. Each day, the 100 members participating receive random acts of kindness to complete. They can also share their stories on the group page to earn extra points. The member with the most points at the end wins a free seat at the group's Friendsgiving event.

Keep Reading Show less
Image from Wikimedia Commons .

Van Gogh’s Starry Night.



Van Gough never got to enjoy his own historic success as an artist ( even though we've been able to imagine what that moment might have looked like). But it turns out that those of us who have appreciated his work have been missing out on some critical details for more than 100 years.

I'm not easily impressed, OK?

I know Van Gogh was a genius. If the point of this were "Van Gogh was a mad genius," I would not be sharing this with you.
Keep Reading Show less
Photo by Omar Lopez on Unsplash

Women do better when they have female friends.

Madeleine Albright once said , "There is a special place in hell for women who don't help other women." It turns out that might actually be a hell on Earth, because women just do better when they have other women to rely on, and there's research that backs it up.

A study published in the Harvard Business Review found that women who have a strong circle of friends are more likely to get executive positions with higher pay. "Women who were in the top quartile of centrality and had a female-dominated inner circle of 1-3 women landed leadership positions that were 2.5 times higher in authority and pay than those of their female peers lacking this combination," Brian Uzzi writes in the Harvard Business Review .

Part of the reason why women with strong women backing them up are more successful is because they can turn to their tribe for advice. Women have to face different challenges than men, such as unconscious bias, and being able to turn to other women who have had similar experiences can help you navigate a difficult situation. It's like having a road map for your goals.

Keep Reading Show less
via UNSW

Dr. Daniel Mansfield and his team at the University of New South Wales in Australia have just made an incredible discovery. While studying a 3,700-year-old tablet from the ancient civilization of Babylon, they found evidence that the Babylonians were doing something astounding: trigonometry!

Most historians have credited the Greeks with creating the study of triangles' sides and angles, but this tablet presents indisputable evidence that the Babylonians were using the technique 1,500 years before the Greeks ever were.

Keep Reading Show less

Millennials are now old enough to seriously reflect on life.

It seems like only yesterday a millennial was a college kid that baby boomers chided for being entitled and Gen Xers thought were way too sincere and needed to learn how to take a joke. Today, the oldest millennials, those born around 1980, have hit their 40s and have lived long enough to have some serious regrets.

They also have enough experience to take some pride in decisions that, in hindsight, were the right moves.

The good news is that at 40 there is still plenty of time to learn from our successes and failures to set ourselves up for a great second half of life. These lessons are also valuable to the Gen Zers coming up who can avoid the pitfalls of the older generation.

A Reddit user who has since deleted their profile asked millennials nearing 40 “what were your biggest mistakes at this point in life?” and they received more than 2,200 responses. The biggest regrets these millennials have are being flippant about their health and not saving enough money when they were younger.

Keep Reading Show less

A woman giving a stern warning.

Over the past few years, women named Karen have taken a lot of heat in the media. The term "Karen" has been used to describe a specific type of entitled, privileged and often middle-aged white woman. Typically, "Karen” is depicted as demanding, self-important and constantly seeking to escalate minor inconveniences to authority figures, like demanding to "speak to the manager."

Identifying the folks who create unnecessary drama in our world is important. But calling them a “Karen” isn’t the best way to solve the problem. There are many reasons to have an issue with the “Karen” stereotype. First, it’s terrible for people named Karen, and it’s also a connotation that many feel is racist , sexist and ageist.

Further, according to a new study by Trustpilot , the stereotype isn’t accurate. A recent survey by the online media site found that the people who leave the most one-star reviews aren’t female, and the women who do it the most aren’t named Karen.

Keep Reading Show less

Lying in bed and looking out the window with no one asking for anything? Yes, please.

It's hard to explain the relentless intensity of having young children if you haven't done it. It's wonderful, beautiful, magical and all of that—it truly is—but it's a lot. Like, a lot . It's a bit like running an ultramarathon through the most beautiful landscape you can imagine. There's no question that it's amazing, but it's really, really hard. And sometimes there are storms or big hills or obstacles or twisted ankles or some other thing that makes it even more challenging for a while.

Unfortunately, a lot of moms feel like they're running that marathon alone. Some actually are. Some have partners who don't pull their weight. But even with an equal partner, the early years tend to be mom-heavy, and it takes a toll.

In fact, that toll is so great that it's not unusual for moms to fantasize about being hospitalized—not with anything serious, just something that requires a short stay—simply to get a genuine break .

Keep Reading Show less