Washington, DC and Waterbury, VT, July 15, 2010 – Green Mountain Coffee® and Ashoka’s Changemakers have announced the winners of their Revelation to Actionsm Your Place. Your Idea. Your Change.sm competition. Three overall competition winners and seven state winners – from Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont – were chosen among hundreds of creative ideas for strengthening and engaging communities across the Northeastern U.S.
The Revelation to Action winners were announced at a Celebration Event held yesterday at the Cyclorama at the Boston Center for the Arts in Boston. Each winner was awarded $5,000 and will be featured on www.Changemakers.com/Revelation as one of the best ideas for mobilizing citizens to build a better community.
The three overall competition winners are as follows:
• Semester in Sustainable Design/Build, Warren, VT: Yestermorrow Design/Build School provides college students with the opportunity for a semester of study and hands-on experience in sustainable design principles and processes.
• Vermont Food Education Every Day (VT FEED), Shelburne, VT: VT FEED works with schools and communities to raise awareness about healthy food, the role of farms and farmers, and good nutrition, and is a catalyst for rebuilding healthy food systems and cultivating links between classrooms, cafeterias, local farms, and communities.
• Still Growing Senior Community Rooftop Garden, Bangor, ME: The Hammond Street Senior Center is transforming its rooftop into a downtown urban garden. Seniors who can no longer manage a garden on their own or have downsized into apartments or retirement communities can use this garden to grow vegetables, exercise, and make new friends.
The seven state winners are as follows:
• Free Primary Health Care for the Uninsured of Greater Hartford, Hartford, CT: Through the use of a mobile medical clinic, this program provides free, high quality primary health care services to an underserved population that has no other means of accessing the health care system.
• Red Tomato, Canton, MA: Red Tomato coordinates marketing, logistics, and sales to create market opportunities for a regional farm network. By offering supermarkets one-stop access to season-long, farm-identified local food, Red Tomato increases consumer access to local produce and solidifies farm sustainability by ensuring that small and mid-size farmers can compete in today’s wholesale market.
• Common Ground Country Fair, Unity, ME: The Common Ground Country Fair is a gathering, in the spirit of a harvest festival, which serves to encourage the revival of agriculturally-based rural communities.
• Recipe for Success Culinary Job Training Program, Manchester, NH: This program helps unemployed/underemployed people gain the skills and experience to seek employment in the food service industry, rescue quality food from entering the waste stream, and provide prepared meals to thousands of needy people in NH.
• Project Enterprise – Small Loans and Big Connections, New York, NY: This project creates a “Center of Entrepreneurship” where traditionally under-resourced entrepreneurs can receive small loans and a suite of other services that will assist them in building businesses and assets for themselves and their families.
• DoubleGreen™ Credit Builder Loan Program, The Capital Good Fund, Providence, RI: This program makes $200 loans to Rhode Islanders with no or poor credit history to purchase and install programmable thermostats that lower their energy costs by $180 annually. Borrowers build credit through repayments of the loan and reduce their energy consumption, thereby reducing carbon emissions.
• Jr. Iron Chef VT, Shelburne, VT: This statewide competition gives students an opportunity to gain hands-on experience preparing and cooking nutritious, farm-fresh foods. The program highlights local agriculture and encourages students to make healthy eating choices and understand more about nutrition and school food systems.
A panel of five distinguished judges from the Northeastern business and academic community narrowed the diverse pool of applicants to 15 finalists based on the innovation, social impact and sustainability of each entry. The Changemakers online community then voted for the best entries, and the three finalists with the most votes were selected as overall competition winners. Green Mountain Coffee selected seven additional state winners – one from each of the participating states. For complete rules and regulations of this competition, visit www.Changemakers.com/Revelation and click on "Eligibility, Criteria and Prizes."
“We believe a simple idea can transform your street, your neighborhood, and your community,” said Michael Dupee, Vice President of Corporate Social Responsibility at Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, Inc., who also served as a competition judge. “The range of pragmatic and innovative ideas we learned about through the Revelation to Action competition will hopefully serve as a catalyst for other communities to consider and adapt to their local circumstances.”
"The solutions submitted to this competition are powerful initiatives for grassroots change, whether they address homelessness in Vermont, prisoner reform in Massachusetts, or better parenting programs for fathers in urban New York,” said Diana Wells, Ashoka’s president. "The Changemakers community is sharing practical solutions that inspire people to pitch in to build on the strengths of their communities.”
Click here to view a video of why Ashoka’s Changemakers and Green Mountain Coffee launched Revelation to Action:
http://www.youtube.com/changemakersvideo#p/c/EEB719E893336ECF/1/XY1dWyQDURs
Click here to view Revelation to Action thought leader interviews with Charles Best, founder of DonorsChoose.org, and Bradford Smith, president of the Foundation Center:
Charles Best: http://www.youtube.com/changemakersvideo#p/u/9/5q93uZJ3Mlk
Bradford Smith: http://www.youtube.com/changemakersvideo#p/u/14/gIdHb7babac
About Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, Inc. (NASDAQ: GMCR)
As a leader in the specialty coffee industry, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, Inc. is recognized for its award-winning coffees, innovative brewing technology, and socially responsible business practices. GMCR’s operations are managed through two business units. The Specialty Coffee business unit produces coffee, tea and hot cocoa from its family of brands, including Green Mountain Coffee®, Newman’s Own® Organics coffee, Tully’s Coffee®, Timothy’s World Coffee®, and Diedrich Coffee®. The Keurig business unit is a pioneer and leading manufacturer of gourmet single-cup brewing systems. K-Cup® portion packs for Keurig® Single-Cup Brewers are produced by a variety of licensed roasters and brands, including Green Mountain Coffee, Tully’s Coffee, Timothy’s, and Diedrich. GMCR supports local and global communities by offsetting 100% of its direct greenhouse gas emissions, investing in Fair Trade Certified™ coffee, and donating at least five percent of its pre-tax profits to social and environmental projects. Visit www.gmcr.com for more information.
GMCR routinely posts information that may be of importance to investors in the Investor Relations section of its web site, including news releases and its complete financial statements, as filed with the SEC. GMCR encourages investors to consult this section of its web site regularly for important information and news. Additionally, by subscribing to GMCR’s automatic email news release delivery, individuals can receive news directly from GMCR as it is released.
About Ashoka’s Changemakers
Ashoka’s Changemakers is a community of action that connects social entrepreneurs around the globe to share ideas, inspire and mentor each other. Through its online collaborative competitions and open-source process, Changemakers.com is one of the world’s most robust spaces for launching, discussing, and funding ideas to solve the world’s most pressing social problems. Changemakers builds on Ashoka’s three decade history and belief that we all have the ability to be a Changemaker. www.Changemakers.com
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