Wire Actor Is Starting His Own Grocery Store Chain
After seeing most grocery chains refuse to set up shop in low-income New Orleans neighborhoods, actor Wendell Pierce—a New Orleans native best known for playing cigar-smoking detective Bunk Moreland on The Wire—decided to take matters into his own hands. Pierce is starting Sterling Foods, which will have locations exclusively in poor communities.
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In considering the problem of food deserts, places in America where grocery stores simply don’t exist, today we also consider the societal impact of “food swamps,” places overloaded with junk food purveyors. Is it better to provide health food or eliminate junk food?
Researchers examined data from about 5,000 young adults in four communities across the United States, and found that supermarket and grocery store access translated into neither an increase in fruit and vegetable consumption nor a healthier diet. What the study did find, however, is that a close proximity to fast food restaurants correlated with eating more fast food for one demographic—low-income men. Instead of pushing for more new supermarkets, the authors suggest that taxing junk food and subsidizing healthy food might make a bigger difference in how everyone eats.
GOOD Ideas for Cities: Designing Guerrilla Bike Signage
How to make a city’s streets more comfortable for bikers? A team from New Orleans went ahead and installed their own bikeway signage.
From our Migration Issue: Let the Right Ones In
New Orleans is transforming from a stagnant backwater struggling with white flight, brain drain, and urban blight—not to mention two hurricanes, an oil spill, and a recession—into a city where the number of people starting businesses is 28 percent higher than the national average. Tax credits have brought in video game, bioscience, and tech companies, diversifying an economy long dependent on tourism, shipping, and oil. The city’s $600 million film scene ranks right behind Los Angeles and New York City. Business leaders and economic developers are hustling to rebrand New Orleans as a destination for the young and creative, talking up its reputation for small business, great food, and unique music.
Financial Fitness Task 18: Shop for a Week’s Worth of Groceries #30DaysofGOOD
It’s time to fill up your fridge, raid your favorite food blogs and get comfy in the kitchen. Scope out some tasty recipes that call for the same produce, make a meal plan, and head over to the grocery store.
Rebranding the Food Movement to Broaden Its Appeal
Attempting to redesign the supermarket, Alphonzo and Alison Cross are using prime shelf space for local and organic food. Their store, The Boxcar Grocer, has the support of the community in Castleberry Hill, Atlanta, but the real challenge according to Alison will be “how to keep enough food on the shelves on a daily basis.”
GOOD Maker Challenge Africa Edition: Share Your Innovative Health Solution
- GOOD Maker wrote in Health, Africa and Global Development
Calling all creative health leaders across Africa: We’re looking for health and development pioneers working on innovative projects tackling some of the most important issues affecting our world: Maternal & Child Health; HIV/AIDs & Reproductive Health; and TB & Malaria.
Submit your project between now and October 15 to the Africa Edition of the GOOD Maker Pioneers of Health Challenge. Up to five winners with the most innovative solutions will join us for the GOOD Pioneers of Health Exchange, a four day collaboratory in Cape Town, South Africa from December 10 through 13. Powered by GOOD and Name Your Hood, the Exchange will be an opportunity to share and accelerate exciting solutions in health with fellow innovators, prominent health leaders, government officials and other nonprofit organizations.
Whether you’re a designer or engineer, community health worker or passionate advocate, we want to hear about your insights for some of the most pressing health challenges affecting the world. We know that often the best solutions are collaborative and have surprising origins, so share your unique perspective and together, let’s help move the world forward in South Africa.
To read complete rules and and submit, send us your submission here before October 15 noon PDT and you could win a chance to join us in Cape Town.
Follow this challenge on Twitter at @GOODMkr and #PioneersOfHealth. Want to learn more about GOOD Maker? Drop us a line at maker@goodinc.com, sign up for our email list, or check out past and current funding opportunities.
Infographic: We’re Running Out of Doctors in the U.S.
Primary-care physicians—the ones who cover comprehensive health needs and provide continuing care for their patients—were once the foundation of a high-value American health care system. But now, family doctors are becoming an endangered breed. Why? Launch Infographic
A collaboration between GOOD + Column Five
To Your Health: Let’s Tackle Well-Being With DIY Spirit
- GOOD HQ wrote in Health and Living
Ancient Greek physician Herophilos was on to something with these words of wisdom: “When health is absent, wisdom cannot reveal itself, art cannot manifest, strength cannot fight, wealth becomes useless, and intelligence cannot be applied.”
For July, we have decided to put the GOOD focus on the subject of health—from ways you can take better control over your personal health, to ways we can collectively help improve community and global health.
Illustration by Corinna Loo
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