Freebie Fridays

by southloop, February 25, 2009 | Permalink

Freebie Fridays! Every Friday from 12:30-1, when you spend $10 you’ll receive a freebie item! All you have to do is show your receipt to redeem the freebie. We’ll have a new item each week. This week you have your choice of Nature’s Path Organic Gorilla Munch or Pumpkin Flax Plus Granola.

Falafel Express

by southloop, February 25, 2009 | Permalink

South Loop is excited to announce the newest addition to our Prepared Foods Department! Visit our Falafel Express Station everyday from 10a.m. - 9p.m. You will find delicious homemade falafels, rice and lentils, hummus, baba ganoush, cucumber salad, tabouli, dolmas, yogurt sauce and pickled habanero.

Whole Planet Foundation

by southloop, February 21, 2009 | Permalink

Our Mission

The The Whole Planet Foundation’s mission is to create economic partnerships with the poor in those developing-world communities that supply our stores with product. Through innovative assistance for entrepreneurship - including direct microcredit loans and tangible support for other community partnership projects - we seek to unleash the energy and creativity of every human being we work with in order to create wealth and prosperity in emerging economies.

Experiencing The Success of The Whole Planet Foundation

by Jamie Katz

Last June through a program called the Whole Foods Market Team Member Volunteer Program I found myself in La Alegria, Costa Rica, a town so small it’s not on any map. I don’t speak Spanish. But I’ve never felt more human or more understood than as a Team Member Volunteer. What I learned in Costa Rica is that smiles are universal. So is gratitude. And most easily understood of all? Hope. I witnessed firsthand what microcredit looks like. It’s a piglet to fatten and sell for Christmas dinner. It’s a dairy cow. A little pond made into a Tilapia farm. It’s the ability to sell clothes directly to your neighbors without losing your money to a middle man.  The women I met shone with pride, welcoming strangers to see their businesses, to visit their homes. Whole Planet Foundation and Grameen Trust had impacted their lives. And they wanted to share that change with anyone who would listen. I couldn’t get enough.

One of my best moments? Offering to pay one of the borrowers for a frozen coconut treat, the last of a batch she had brought to sell to the other Grameen borrowers and their children. She looked at me, shook her head, and put her hand over mine, pushing back my palm and the Colones (Costa Rican currency) in it.  She gave me the popsicle and one of the biggest smiles I have ever seen. And to think, a grocery store, the one that feeds and employs me, made it happen. Remarkable.  I can still taste that icy coconut deliciousness today.

You too can be a part of something so sweet. Join Whole Foods Market Feburary 18^th-March 31^st in our Prosperity Campaign. We will be asking for $1 or $5 donations at our register to support the Whole Planet Foundation. WPF is our non-profit foundation devoted to microcredit in countries where we source product. What does microcredit mean? It means offering the poorest of the poor, usually women, a very small loan (less than $300) without contract or collateral. Why? So she can start a self-employment opportunity to lift herself and her family out of poverty.

This is a tested and proven way out of poverty. How do we know? Nobel Laureate Muhammed Yunus pioneered this concept and helped millions of people in his native Bangladesh with Grameen Bank. Now Dr. Yunus serves as an advisor to Whole Planet and Grameen a partner in spreading the miracle of microcredit around the world.  The average loan right now is $200. We are in many places, including Kenya, East Timor, Indonesia, Costa Rica, and Guatemala. Loan repayment rate is 99%! This really works.

Where we Whole Foods Market take, we want to give. To help the communities that  provide us with some of our favorite things: coffee, bananas, chocolate, and tea, to name a few.  Please consider a donation. Also, by purchasing Whole Trade or Supplier Alliance products you also give back to Whole Planet Foundation. To give directly or learn more by go to www.wholeplanetfoundation.org.

Together, as Muhammed Yunus says, we can put poverty in a museum.

Freebie Fridays

by southloop, February 18, 2009 | Permalink

Most of us can probably agree that Fridays are the weekly gateway to fun. So we got together at SLP to come up with another reason for you to look forward to this much anticipated day. South Loop is proud to introduce our new lunch program, Freebie Fridays! Every Friday from 12:30-1, when you spend $10 you’ll receive a freebie item! All you have to do is show your receipt to redeem the freebie. We’ll have a new item each week. This week’s Freebie is a bag of  yummy 365 Popcorn! Perfect for a Friday or Saturday night movie at home.