Honest Tea founder Seth Goldman and his wife, Julie Farkas, are putting their money where their mouths are.
Four months after launching Eat the Change, a platform to help people make the connection between their environmental footprints and what they eat, the duo are donating $1 million over the next three years to nonprofits supporting the same mission. And they’re starting now.
The husband-wife team has selected 21 community nonprofits for its first wave of grants, totaling about $335,000 per year, Eat the Change announced Wednesday. Those awards range from $5,000 to $10,000 apiece.
It’s planning to announce the next group in August.
They selected organizations that “stood out for their authenticity and ability to inspire others through making planet-friendly, healthy food accessible to everyone regardless of race, geography and income,” Farkas said in a statement.
More than 120 applications from 34 states and three countries came in for this first phase.
“The pandemic has highlighted the stark disparities in health outcomes that exist in our society, and there has never been a more important time to invest in community-based partners working to address those gaps,” Goldman said in a statement.
Here are the winners, including a handful from the D.C. area:
$10,000 grants:
- DC Greens (D.C.)
- Rio Grande Community Development Corp., on behalf of Cooperative Catalyst of New Mexico (Albuquerque, New Mexico)
- Acta Non Verba Youth Farm, on behalf of East Oakland Grocery Cooperative (East Oakland, California)
- Earth Island Institute on behalf of Food Shift (Alameda, California)
- Grow Dat Youth Farm (New Orleans, Louisiana)
- Iowa Valley RC&D (Amana, Iowa)
- Keep Growing Detroit (Detroit, Michigan)
- Community Partners, on behalf of Los Angeles Food Policy Council (Los Angeles)
- Project New Village (San Diego, California)
- Suprseed (South Centra, California)
- Trees that Feed Foundation (Winnetka, Illinois)
$7,500 grants:
- Charles Koiner Conservancy for Urban Farming (Silver Spring)
- Friends of the National Arboretum Washington Youth Garden (D.C.)
- Black Veg Society of Maryland (Baltimore)
- A Table in the Wilderness (Oklahoma City-metro area, Oklahoma)
- Cumberland County Food Security Council (Yarmouth, Maine)
- Hawaii Institute of Pacific Agriculture (Kapaau, Hawaii)
$5,000 grants:
- Common Good City Farm (D.C.)
- Crossroads Community Food Network (Takoma Park)
- Southern Illinois Community Foundation on behalf of Carbondale Spring Food Autonomy Initiative (Carbondale, Illinois)
- Feeding GA Families (Atlanta, Georgia)
Goldman, also board chairman of Los Angeles plant-based protein company Beyond Meat, rolled out Eat the Change with Farkas after he stepped away from homegrown bottled beverage business Honest Tea. Then within a week, the Coca-Cola-owned company said it would relocate to its parent’s Atlanta headquarters. The new venture is now based in its former space in downtown Bethesda.
Eat the Change — one of DC Inno’s 2020 Inno on Fire winners — also has a for-profit side, which encompasses businesses that make it easy for consumers to choose foods free of animal products. That includes PLNT Burger, a vegan fast-casual joint from celebrity chef Spike Mendelsohn in which Goldman is now an investor.
