Peace Corps

You’ve thought about joining or maybe you’re a past Corps volunteer. I came this close to going to Estonia or Guatemala in 1996. It’s the Peace Corps, perhaps one of the best service programs sponsored by the federal government.

Although many argue its value to our modern society, the Peace Corps continues to send volunteers to far away places on two year stints, doing everything from building bridges and digging wells, to helping artisans and farmers get their products to market.

This March, the Corps celebrates its 44th year. In that time, there have been 178,000 volunteers who have served in 138 countries. There are currently 7,700 volunteers, 58% of whom are female, with an average age of 28. The oldest volunteer is 82. Some famous returned volunteers include Representatives Christopher Shays and Christopher Dodd, both of Connecticut, television news show host, Chris Matthews, and home improvement guru, Bob Villa.

If you’re thinking about it, maybe you should check it out. The Peace Corps has many offices around the country and is always looking for great people. If you get in (yes, it’s a competitive process), please let us know so that we can look for your dispatches from the field.

Above photo courtesy of the Peace Corps. Dana Carson is an agriculture volunteer serving in Nicaragua. She works with farmers and agronomists to improve soil conservation. (May 2000)

Plenty Magazine

A new environmental magazine has hit the streets, and it’s not your father’s Sierra or National Geographic.

Plenty, a magazine professing to be about “smart living for a complex world,” published its first issue in the fall of 2004 and is looking to do six more in 2005. The magazine seeks to do what many who follow all matters environmental have been pining for for a long time: It’s injecting a sense of youth, relevance, sex and style into the conversation over conservation.

Citing Rachel Carson’s 1962 book, Silent Spring, as a starting point of the environmental movement, Plenty is focused on healing the environment by changing consumer habits and sensibilities. Undoubtedly, it will use slick journalism to help sell not only the magazine but the latest environmental ideas and technologies to the “savvy, environmentally conscious consumer.” Similar to Organic Style, a highly successful magazine published by the Rodale, Inc., Plenty will introduce style and star appeal to help sell the movement.

However, Plenty will be noticeably different than the competition. Recent covers feature Ford agency models scantily dressed in eco-friendly clothing and engaged in campy antics like kicking cartoon villains named Smogman. Certainly, Plenty will stand out on the magazine racks from other eco-mags.

YES!

YES! A Journal of Positive Futures is a quarterly magazine published by, you guessed it, The Positive Futures Network, a non-profit group located in beautiful Bainbridge Island, Washington.

This diamond in the rough focuses on particular themes for each issue, and gives readers action items to help make our a better world in which to live. NICE can’t think of a better use of skill and talent then by the great work of this publication.

Examples of covered topics include: Getting Free – Sustainable Living; Money: Print Your Own; and peace building.

Currently on the cover is Amy Goodman, creator and host of the radio and television news show, Democracy Now!. Subscribe to YES! and get inspired.

The Random Acts of Kindness Foundation

The mission of this organization is to, “…inspire people to practice kindness and to “pass it on” to others.” Pretty nifty and simple is we do say so ourselves.

Founded in 1995, the group provides free lesson plans, activity ideas, publicity guides and workplace resources to aid in the spreading of kindness. They have a healthy website with many great tools to help your church group or club in planning your kindness projects. And they don’t even want your money for it. Not only is everything free, they won’t even accept donations, grants or government funding.

So, how do they this? According to their website, the organization is funded by an anonymous donor. As far as public records reveal, the group has no religious, political or other affiliations. They simply exist to help spread kindness.

The Random Acts of Kindness Foundation is the United States delegate to the World Kindness Movement. It’s great to know that there are entire organizations and networks dedicated to this very small, simple and yet powerful cause.

Newman's Own

Everyone by now is familiar with the Newman's Own brand of salad dressing, salsas, popcorn, et. al. What you may or may not be aware of is the fact that sole owner, Paul Newman, donates all after tax profits from his food empire to charity. Since 1982, the company has given away more than $150 million. Now that is something to aspire to.

Not coincidentally, NICE Magazine has adopted this same principle of allocating after tax profits entirely to non-profit and educational causes.

Acts of Kindness

Here’s a cool product that seems to be inspired by the whole Kindness Movement (see Things, February 2005).

Carma Design, a St. Louis, Missouri company, makes stickers pre-printed with nice phrases such as, “I find comfort in your voice,” and “Your passion for life is contagious.” Seems a bit close to being cheesy, but sometimes you just have to go there to prove a point. These acts of kindness™ help you to do so.

The stickers are not permanent – much like Post-It® notes – so you don’t run the risk of ruining your best friend’s new leather handbag by sticking an act of kindness™ on it.

They come in sheets of (lucky) seven and feature different messages for each sticker. Every sheet has a theme, like friends, family, for him or for her, and fun packs that include several different sheets are available.

This product gets on the NICE Things pages, however, because Carma Design donates 5% of their profits to charity. In this case, the company supports Child Advocates, a non-profit that works with and advocates for abused and neglected children.

Giving Game

It’s Missouri month at NICE Things.

St. Louis based, The Giving Game Foundation, runs a very fun and effective program that encourages people to “pay it forward.” The game is simple: You obtain a playing card either online or via the mail, then, quite like being “it” in a game of chase, as the holder of the card you are compelled to commit a kind act – known or in secret – to someone else. Once you do so, you pass that card on to that person. Each card has a unique identification number. So, after doing your act of kindness, you register the card and the nature of your kind act on the Giving Game website. As the card continues on in its travels, you can login every once in a while and chronicle its journey of kindness.

That’s it. No scoring, no winners or losers. You simply have a front seat in the game of nice acts.

The durable plastic game cards ordered through the mail are free and come in packs of 25. You can put as many cards as you like into play. Or, you can get a group of friends together and get them going that way. The cards are also available online and through your printer, but it is recommended that you have them laminated to ensure durability.

The Giving Game Foundation is a project of the National Heritage FoundationNational Heritage Foundation of Virginia.

Fair Trade Certified

Let's start with the basics of NICE things. Products with the Fair Trade Certified logo support a movement that helps small family farmers and laborers in other countries to enjoy a larger piece of the earnings pie. One of the approximately 800,000 coffee farmers involved in the program makes an average of 3 to 5 times more selling through Fair Trade cooperatives than conventional methods.

Everyone has heard of Fair Trade Coffee, but this certification program also works with cocoa, tea, bananas and fresh fruits such as grapes and strawberries.

For more information, visit the Fair Trade Certified website.

USDA Organic

I have spent time in the sustainable agriculture movement, so I know to approach this one with some caution.

A couple of years back, the United States Department of Agriculture came out with an all encompassing food labeling program targeted at the burgeoning organic food movement. The process took nearly 10 years of back-and-forth between the visionary grass roots movement that started the deal and the bureaucratic USDA that wanted to regulate it.

The end result, however, is a program that at least gains organic food products better credibility with consumers. Also, a foundation for growing the industry that supports the organics, such as the certifying agencies, food supply houses and processing plants, was set in place by the USDA labeling efforts.

One thing you should be aware of is the different grades of organic foods out there. USDA breaks them down into four basic categories: 100% organic; 95 – 100% organic; more than 70% organic; and less than 70% organic. Basically, any product using the USDA Organic label shown above will have at least 95% organic content.

And also be aware that not all producers have accepted this system, as it is only a voluntary one. There are many products out there that would qualify as 100% organic under the USDA system, but do not utilize the label. So the best policy is to know your grocer, or better yet, your farmer, and ask them about the organic content of their foods.

Kona Coffee

Kona Coffee is known to be a high quality, highly sought after and highly priced caffeine fix. But what many of us do not know is just how much of an all around good thing Kona Coffee is for the environment and the people of the western coast of the Big Island of Hawai’i. Not too mention, Kona is America’s greatest coffee producing region. Kona beans are literally hand picked, one at a time. Bean quality is carefully graded by the State of Hawai’i Department of Agriculture in order to qualify as pure Kona. This scrutiny ensures that plantations place a high priority on those picking the beans and the land on which the trees grow. Indeed, field workers are well paid and taken care of and many plantations voluntarily opt to implement environmentally sustainable farm practices.

The 100% Kona Coffee label is a perfect example of commerce influencing smarter, more humane business. But buyer beware: Of the 20 million or so pounds of so-called Kona coffee sold annually around the world, only 2 million of that qualified as 100% Kona. Most coffees posing as Kona are 90% blends, in other words, only 10% of the bags include actual Kona Coffee.

Our favorite: the Holualoa Kona Coffee Company of the Kona Lea Plantation.