Congratulations to giveaway winner Denise C. from New Hampshire! Thanks to everyone who entered - we loved hearing what Alaffia's products and story mean to you!   Olowo-n’djo Tchala is the Founder and Director of Alaffia. As one of our Whole Trade® vendors he is committed to making sure employees and suppliers receive better wages and working conditions.

Raychel Santo is a sophomore double-major in Public Health Studies and Global Environmental Change & Sustainability at Johns Hopkins University (JHU). Originally from Dayton, Ohio, her passion for everything “green” began with her discovery of the sustainable food movement in her last few years of high school.

Last fall Raychel participated in the Teens Turning Green Project Green Challenge and was selected as one of the 12 finalists to attend Green University. Here she shares the story of her experience.

Join the parade for one of Manhattan’s largest and liveliest festivals. Check out the ritualistic street cleansing, capoeira, sugarcane juice and more in this episode of Fest-a-Nation.

In this episode of Hungry for More, host Kieron Elliot tastes his way through a biodynamic and organic vineyard, climbing into the process with both feet.

Watch as host Kieron spends a day bantering with organic turkeys, eating their food and attempting to drive a combine, in this episode of Hungry for More.

Perfect for home, office or gifting, the Whole Planet Foundation calendar costs only $3 and 100% of sales goes to fund microcredit. All thanks to our vendor partners, who also give you over $20 in coupons.

If you’re lucky enough be in Northern California’s Bay Area on the 23rd through the 25th, you must visit the Eat Real Festival. You’re appetite will thank you.

Tom and Rachel dream of eating only food grown in their own backyard in Vallejo, California, learning from challenges and flourishing from successes. Watch their story on Grow.

Harvindar Singh, Whole Foods Market’s Local Forager for the Northern California area, hands me a fresh cup of locally roasted coffee just as I greet him at the center of the Friday morning Oakland, CA farmers market. It’s a good, bold roast and takes the chill out of the air. Before I’ve even taken a sip, we are on the move.

Dozens of our team members helped celebrate San Francisco’s Pride Parade with a giant rainbow cupcake pulled by a vintage farm truck.

While I grew up living a fairly active lifestyle between softball and dance lessons, I also grew up eating a lot of poor quality food (think deep-fried, fast food). Today, I’m extremely passionate about living a healthy lifestyle and teaching kids to adopt healthier eating and exercise habits in their own lives. On February 26th, 2011, I was pleased to volunteer with Whole Foods Market for Marathon Kids, a national organization in nine cities that provides a free running/walking, nutrition, and schoolyard gardening program to kids between kindergarten and the fifth grade.

For the fourth year in a row, Whole Foods Market proudly sponsored the Great American Seafood Cook-Off (GASCO) and featured a mini-store that displayed our exclusive 365 Everyday Value brand along with a beautiful spread of produce that included local peppers, okra, eggplant and peaches.

In the grocery business, the summer months can be slower than at other times of the year. After all, the summer is an excellent time to go on vacation, spend your afternoons at the beach and grill dinner in your backyard. We feel that way too!

When you think of Whole Foods Market, I bet the amazing food we sell is top of mind. But regular readers of this blog know we are about so much more than food. Check out this video for one example.

•Update 2/2/2010•

Since you meet them in the aisles of our stores, you probably know that our Whole Foods Market Team Members are passionate about food. What you may not know is that our local vendors are some of the most zealous food people you'll ever find! These folks have devoted their lives - often at great financial risk and always with great personal dedication - to making high-quality, natural food. Pretty incredible!

Whole Foods Market’s Jeff and David give Willie a big check.

I’m very happy to announce that Whole Foods Market has signed an agreement with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) designed to help improve wages and working conditions for Florida tomato pickers. I put together this blog entry to explain the steps we took that led us to make this agreement.

**Update: Friday, September 5th** We are well on our way to recovery! A huge public thank you to everyone who has helped us get to this point so we can help meet the needs of our communities. There’s more to be done and we are up for the challenge!