The Year in GOOD Things

Last month, when I voted for Crescent City Cafe* to win a $5000 grant from GOOD, I signed up for the daily email. I've really enjoyed their positive messages.

Our once-a-day email, The Daily GOOD, explores and amplifies the best in grassroots initiatives, up-and-coming organizations, and inspiring ideas making small steps toward a big impact—if you haven't signed up yet, you're missing out. This year, The Daily GOOD unearthed hundreds of "good" things, but we've scaled that down to a few favorites on a variety of topics we love—like food, design, and giving back to the community.

I wish I could embed their "top good things of 2011" slideshow (which you can see here). Since I can't here's an example of the goodness:

This year saw the sustainable food movement taken more seriously than ever by big players in the private sector, most notably supermarkets. One rising star in the industry is BrightFarms, a startup that plans to open three greenhouses on the rooftops of chain supermarkets by the end of next year. The greatest part of this concept? Food miles are reduced to zero when you buy produce where it's grown.

See also:
In.gredients, one of the world's only packaging-free grocery stores, opening soon in Austin, Texas.
Photo courtesy of BrightFarms

See the full slideshow here.
Sign up for The Daily GOOD at http://www.good.is/

*I learned about Crescent City Cafe on Twitter. One of the founders is an Alpha Chi Omega sister from Loyola University in New Orleans. And, yes, they won the contest and the $5000 grant!

The mission of the Crescent City Cafe is to serve breakfast to New Orleans’ homeless and low-income residents with dignity and to connect young adults together in service to our community.... Founded in February 2009, the cafe simulates a restaurant, complete with breakfast specials that change each month.... The Crescent City Café serves people who are homeless with dignity. We greet them, seat them and request their food and beverage order. We demonstrate respect. We transfer hope. And we hope that through our actions, homeless stops being a brand and starts being a circumstance – a real crisis that a real person is currently experiencing.

http://www.crescentcitycafe.com/cafe/