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By Jeff Gang, December 31, 2009 9:04 am

Getting ready to pack boxes!

My family just returned from a week in Nashville, TN, were spent Christmas with our extended family. One of the highlights of the week was the evening we spent volunteering at the Second Harvest Food Bank of Middle Tennessee. My sister-in-law, Julie, arranged for our entire family, even our children, to spend an evening volunteering at Second Harvest’s massive distribution center. We spent two-half hours on an assembly line packing boxes of food to be distributed to the poor. I worked with my son Braden and his cousin Aiden, packing boxes of canned meat and fruit. The boys rocked!

I was impressed with the organization. They claim, “Second Harvest Food Bank of Middle Tennessee is one of the largest and most comprehensive of over 200 food banks and food distribution centers nationwide.” If you’d like to learn more about how it works, check out their History page on the website. There’s a short video that will tell you about how they began and what they do. And if there’s anyone in the Southern California region who knows about an organization similar to the Second Harvest Food Bank, please let me know about it.

Comments (1)

By Jeff Gang, December 27, 2009 8:22 pm

I stumbled on David’s Berman’s book Do Good Design: How Designers Can Change the World. I haven’t read it yet, but I like the premise of the book—no matter your profession, no matter your work, you can use your skills to help make a more just society. Berman’s book is primarily for professional designers, but his key question is relevant for any profession: Does your work make the world a better place?

His challenge is very simple. Take the Do Good Pledge, stating you will, 1) Be true to your profession (Ethics); 2) Be true to yourself (Principles); and my favorite, 3) Spend 10% of your professional time helping repair the world (Effort). Check out Berman’s blog and consider making the pledge (even if you’re not a designer).  So far 88,000+ hours have been pledged. It’s a simple idea, but I wonder how much better our world would be if we really took the pledge seriously—from food servers to CEO’s. So what do you think?