"volunteer" news and stories

On any given day, I've said ten nice things about the Southern Foodways Alliance before it's even lunchtime. Today, there are pom-pon shakes, fist pumps and spirit fingers of glee at the news of their latest endeavor.

"Announcing SFA's Skillet Brigade

Roll up your sleeves and join SFA's Skillet Brigade. It's a new initiative, one designed to put our vision statement into action: To set a table where black and white, rich and poor, all who gather, may consider our history and our future in a spirit of reconciliation.

Show SFA spirit in your community. Don't think large scale; you don't need to rebuild a storm-damaged fried chicken restaurant. Think smaller scale, and work with an existing effort. Serve lunch at a soup kitchen. Staff the hospitality tent at your local farmers' market. Lend time and talents to the community food pantry." (Read more here.)

For folks unfamiliar with the SFA, they're a member-supported organization of 800+ academics, chefs, writers, and plain ol' food fans who've banded together to celebrate and preserve the food cultures of the American South via conferences, publications, documentary films, and general full-throated evangelism. Won't you please lend a spatula? It's for an awfully delicious cause.

[via: The Southern Foodways Alliance's Skillet Brigade]

Thousands of cookies are baked every week and send to US troops overseas. Jeanette Cram runs the nonprofit group Treat the Troops as a way to organize the mailing efforts(with toiletries and other essentials, in addition to the cookies) and there are other groups, too, like America Supports You, which is run by the Department of Defense. The idea behind these programs is not to make a military statement, but to send a taste of home to sons and daughters.  

Yesterday's New York Times had a great article about people who participate in these programs, sending packages and letters. Due to an increased number of individuals, groups and corporations that are participating, the time it takes for a package to reach a soldier is down from a month to just under two weeks. If that sounds like a long time, just remember that even a slightly stale cookie tastes better than no cookies at all.

For more information on how to write to the soldiers, if you're so inclined, you can contact either of the two groups mentioned above. According to Cram, chocolate chip, peanut butter, oatmeal raisin and snickerdoodles are the most popular flavors.

 

Source