In acknowledgement of the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, BCLC Executive Director Stephen Jordan said the following:

“For the past five years, the Gulf Coast, and by extension, the entire United States, has been laboring to get out from under the shadow of Katrina. The storm marked a turning point in the way the country views disaster response. The business community stepped up in an unprecedented way.

“Corporate citizens contributed well over $1.5 billion to support the region’s recovery, investing in everything from schools and hospitals to cultural improvements and environmental remediation. We have seen signs of vast progress.

“The responses to Hurricanes Gustav and Ike were dramatically different, and Louisiana was actually one of the states least affected by last year’s economic hard times. However, as the effects of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill still linger, we know that much more needs to be done to continue to promote the sustainable development of the region.

“This is why BCLC and the U.S. Chamber have joined together with local chambers throughout the region to promote investment in environmental R&D and exploration technology, job creation and small business capacity building, and other strategies to ensure that what happened after Katrina never happens again with such devastating impact. The fact that disasters happen won’t change, but our ability to cope with them can.

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by Michael Carren, Vice President, JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Nearly 1 in 4 children in America are struggling with hunger. During summer months, more than 16 million children lose access to free and reduced-price meals that they rely on during the school year.

Lack of access to food has documented negative effects on the ability of children to learn and grow and diminishes their ability to perform to their highest potential.

Chase and Feeding America have partnered to reduce the growing levels of hunger and food insecurity in America. In 2009, the level of need for products and services within food banks across the country increased 35 percent on average.

In December 2009, Chase invested $5 million in Feeding America to support markets where hunger was increasing beyond local food banks’ capacity. The investment includes 34 trucks, operational support for each, and the ability to implement state-of-the-art GPS fleet management in their entire fleet of vehicles which will lower their fuel and transportation costs and reduce the environmental footprint of their operations.

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I had the pleasure to join over 100 ARAMARK employees at their launch of a strategic volunteer partnership with Mary’s Center in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, August 4.

The partnership with Mary’s Center is part of ARAMARK’s signature community initiative, ARAMARK Building Community, which strengthens the capacity of local community centers where ARAMARK employees live and work around the world.

Mary’s Center is a Federally Qualified Health Center that supports underserved, underinsured, and uninsured immigrants primarily from Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia with primary care and other services located in Washington, D.C.  It is also a partner of  First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move Campaign, which complements ARAMARK’s core competency in the food and beverage service industry.  

ARAMARK volunteer, Soterios Louvis said it is “inspiring to be part of Mary’s Center. This is an on-going partnership where we can have a sense of pride in doing something special to help develop our community.”

ARAMARK supports organizations, such as Mary’s Center, through skills based volunteer projects as well as financial and in kind support.  ARAMARK and Mary’s Center’s partnership continues on Friday, August 20 with a free Back to School Health Fair, which is providing adults and children with a variety of health and wellness tips and resources to live healthier lifestyles.  The Eat Smart Zone will provide interactive cooking demonstrations and personal sessions with registered dietitians and culinary professionals.  They will also be distributing immunizations.

ARAMARK Building Community is in the midst of over 100 projects engaging about 9,000 employees in 39 cities and 4 countries. Stay tuned as ARAMARK’s community engagement is growing rapidly across Europe and their community partnerships continue throughout the year.

This article first appeared in the Winter 2010 “Impact Newsletter,” a publication of the American Cancer Society, under the title “Xilinx Remains Committed to Battling Cancer Despite the Current State of the Economy.”  Also, don’t miss this Xilinx video of the 2009 Relay for Life event.

Xilinx, Inc. has been engaged with the American Cancer Society for many years, both as a corporate leader for the Society’s annual Daffodil Days® campaign, as well as a champion for employee wellness, declaring their worksite as an official Colon Cancer Free Zone. Becoming a Colon Cancer Free Zone means a company recognizes the seriousness of this disease and vows to encourage all employees to become aware of the risks for colon cancer, talk to their health care providers about early detection, and when appropriate, make an informed decision regarding the necessary screening tests that are so effective in both prevention and early detection for the disease.

This past year, Xilinx expanded its relationship with the American Cancer Society by launching the first Relay For Life® event in San Jose, California’s Cambrian community, where the company is headquartered.

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By Anita Stewart, Vice President, Corporate Partnerships, Sesame Workshop

Photo details below

If you want to go fast, go alone.  If you want to go far, go together.  That, allegedly, is an old African proverb, but regardless of the source, it’s true — and of critical importance for the type of projects Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit behind Sesame Street, undertakes.

According to the USDA, 17 million, or nearly one in four children in the U.S., are struggling with lack of access to enough food to fully meet basic needs at all times. Earlier this year, Sesame Workshop announced its partnership with the Merck Company Foundation and AmeriChoice’s UnitedHealth group in an effort to combat a growing crisis.

Together, we are developing a bilingual educational outreach program aimed at helping low-income families make food choices that are affordable, nutritional and set the foundation for lifelong healthy habits.  It’s a nationwide endeavor needed to alleviate a nationwide problem, and it requires a team effort to achieve the requisite effect. 

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This past week, I was invited by several regional governments in the north of Argentina to discuss how public-private partnerships contribute to economic development.  As I’ve learned more about the situation in Argentina, I realize that one of the biggest issues countries face is how the past can either enable or stymie the future.

In the late 19^th and early 20^th century, Argentina was one of the richest countries in the world.  Fewer than 10% of its people were considered poor.  Blessed with the fertile Pampas, it was as much a breadbasket as the U.S.  At that time, the principal export markets were all in Europe so the country developed a radial pattern of development around the Atlantic ports.  In short, all roads (and railroads) led to Buenos Aires. 

Sound familiar?  The same thing happened in the U.S. in successive waves.  Pre-Civil War, the south was mainly agricultural and rural and sent raw materials up to the north for manufacturing and consumption or export through the great ports stretching from Baltimore to New York and Boston.  Likewise, in the manufacturing era that took off after 1870, Kentucky, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Tennessee either sent their goods up to Cleveland, Detroit and Michigan or south to New Orleans.  Patterns of development emerged that made sense in an agricultural context and in an industrial context. 

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By Jesse Hertstein, Senior Corporate Citizenship Specialist, Amway Global

We want all kids to eat healthy. And we know that for most of us, the best route to getting proper nutrition is by eating more fresh fruits and vegetables. But how do you impact urban youth who may not know how to change their habits, and may not be able to afford fresh produce?

Amway Global kicked off a new three-year partnership with Boys & Girls Clubs of America this year to impact nutrition by gardening at Clubs around the country. The Positive Sprouts program works with experts from the Green Education Foundation to offer curriculum and activities that teach healthy eating to young gardeners.

In its first year, the Positive Sprouts program will build seven gardens at Boys & Girls Clubs in Michigan, California, Washington, Colorado, Pennsylvania and Florida. The program will create a scalable model that will eventually be offered to more than 4,000 Clubs around the country.

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Ah, welcome summertime.  Baseball, cherry pie, vacation, some time at the beach with the family, a more languid pace overall, right?

If you’re involved in sustainable economic and community development and you’re tracking federal grants for your partners and projects – sorry, not so much.  You’ll need to take your vacation in the fall.  That’s because federal agencies, charged with obligating grant funds from their various programs before the end of the government fiscal year (September 30), are now issuing funding notices in droves to provide sufficient time for the gears of government funding to work. 

These opportunities to apply for federal funding (known in government-speak as Notices of Funding Availability or “NOFAs”), provide all you need to know to apply for funding from the dizzying array of federal programs currently undertaken to promote sustainable development, particularly through the Partnership on Sustainable Communities.

Below are listed some of the current, recently issued NOFAs for sustainable development.  But before you take the plunge into this world, you should be aware of a few key points:

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There’s no award (yet) for being the most sustainable city on the planet, but I’m guessing that when there is, the Copenhagen metropolitan region will be a front-runner for the honor.  Or they’ll host the awards ceremony, and in doing so deliver the indelible (yet, in typically Danish fashion, understated) message that the Copenhagen region is the only place to discuss global sustainability issues every year.

I had the honor of addressing the Regional Growth Council of the Copenhagen metropolitan region last week about global considerations that might affect their impending 4-year regional growth plan.  (Denmark’s Capital Region includes Copenhagen, the world-famous city, but also a broader expanse of area north to Helsingore and South to Malmø in Sweden.  Here’s a map and greater description of the Capital Region. With apologies to and recognition of the many other municipalities in this region, I’ll refer to this region as the “Copenhagen region” or the “Capital Region” throughout this article.)  The work follows on from an OECD territorial review of Denmark’s capital region published in 2009, for which I served as a peer reviewer.

When  I told a close friend of deep and proud Danish-American heritage about this opportunity, she couldn’t figure out what Danish government, business, and academic folk living in and around Copenhagen would stand to learn – not so much because the United States has nothing to offer, but because Denmark and Copenhagen are high performers, with a solid export-oriented industrial base (Denmark is a net energy exporter), numerous mature and knowledge-based sector clusters, a population that receives free education and health care and, according to the 2009 European Green City Index, developed by the Economist Intelligence Unit and sponsored by Siemens, the most sustainable city in Europe.

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As events unfold in the Gulf, we are seeing all of the different dimensions of the concept known as sustainability come into play.   The graphic images of oil-covered fish and birds and wetland habitats bring into focus how fragile the natural habitat can be.  We worry about the sustainability of these eco-systems.

Gulf Shores Public Beach, 6/24/10 (GulfShores.com)

We worry about the economic sustainability of the people who live along the Gulf too.  The oil spill has made life much more difficult for the fishermen and the people who are co-dependent on this habitat.  Chambers from Houma, La. to Mobile, Al. are against the proposed moratorium on deepwater drilling.  They argue that a moratorium will drive major investment to other countries and threaten the livelihoods of thousands of workers up and down the Gulf Coast. This week one federal court heeded their call, although appeals of this decision are certain to follow.

And there is still yet another dimension to this question – the viability of future generations to have the opportunities of their predecessors.  Ask businesses across the South about their view of sustainability and they talk about the quality of their schools and their youth programs.  For them, sustainability is intimately linked to the cultivation of human potential and talent. 

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