Unusual story in this morning's Standard-Examiner, calling upon Ogden area citizens to cast their online votes in a national competition between 100 U.S. cities for a serious amount of Walmart Foundation loot which is being donated to help the hungry. Here's the lead from this morning's SE writeup:
OGDEN -- Want to help feed the 18.8 percent of people in Ogden who go hungry every day? Then get online and vote.Read the full SE story here:
The Walmart Foundation launched the "Fighting Hunger Together" Facebook campaign last month.
It has listed 100 cities across the nation facing the worst hunger hardships. Ogden is one of the highest in the nation with an 18.8 percent food hardship, compared with the national average of 9.2 percent.
Anyone can log on to the website at fightinghunger.walmart.com and click on the "Like" button for their community. The city with the most votes will receive $1 million. The next five in the vote will each receive $100,000.
"Up until this week, Ogden was in 15th place, but a 10,000-vote increase Tuesday night bumped the city up to fifth place, and the votes are still coming in," said Jessica Pugh, public relations manager for the Utah Food Bank.
The voting ends at 5 p.m. Friday. The winners will be announced Wednesday on Facebook.
• Meeting Facebook challenge could help feed Ogden's hungryThe Salt Lake Tribune carries a version of this story too:
• Utah Food Bank asks for votes in Walmart contestIn the spirit of inter-city competition we'll urge all Weber County Forum readers to navigate to the Walmart site via the link below and click on the "Like" button for the "Ogden-Clearfield" area:
• Help Fight Hunger in Your CommunityLooks like an effort well worthy of the coupla seconds it will take to lodge your vote.
Can't hurt... might help.
Who knows? Maybe we'll get lucky in Ogden for once.
8 comments:
But if Ogden wins, some other city loses... right? Why should we give some company a bunch of free advertising, just to compete against other cities whose people are just as hungry?
we'll need it after Winco shuts down Stop & Shop and Wangsgards ... and the new Wally World shuts down who knows how many other businesses
cruel world we live in ... especially with our city's current administration holding the reigns [sic]
js,
BB
Don't be a Luddite, Dan S. Rapidly encroching US fascists (can you say Walmart) have tipped their hand here.
Corporate donations to the poor will apparently be henceforth handled sparingly from here on. But these meager handouts will be definitely handed out DEMOCRATICALLY to the LUCKY WINNERS who get the most votes!
Instead of voting in this silly poll, I just made a direct contribution to CCS Utah:
http://www.ccsutah.org/
And although it pains me to say it, I'd like to publicly thank Walmart (and Rudi and the S-E and a couple dozen of my Facebook friends) for drawing attention to the important issue of hunger in our community.
Utah Food Bank is a good place to donate both food and funds if folks are looking for ideas about pitching in on hunger in Our Fair City.
Although I agree (sort of) with Dan -- I think WalMart a necessary evil for many, both in providing pseudo-jobs and low prices on SOME (not all) household items -- it seems to be in their grand plan that some cities will win and some will lose. Their bottom line will get a major tax deduction for the charity, and some folks will have a little more in the bucket for food this year.
If they really cared about people, they would start with their employees ... yada yada ...
TLJ
Walking around town today I observed a lot of people, the vast majority of them were fatsos. How does one reconcile that with Dan's concern over "hunger in our community"?
Different strokes for different folks. Some like political activism and some are more socially oriented but either way, good can come of involvement. Why do I care about Ogden & SLC as opposed to someplace else? It's as illogical as "this is my home".
No question, Ogden's hungry are no more deserving than Podunk's hungry but, there are relatively more hungry folks in Ogden than elsewhere - maybe that will suffice as a logical reason to support the Top of Utah.
As for the contention that Walmart is a money grubing, greedy corp.- so what else is new? I'm no Walmart fan but they are doing more - motive notwithstanding, than a good many others so let's not look the proverbial gift horse in the mouth.
Post a Comment