Products Helping People

I have just finished reading two magazines (it took 1 1/2 weeks and is a luxury at this point in my life) and both magazines had a huge portion of it dedicated to Going Green. They had a lot of great ideas, cool products and plenty of good reasons to join the cause. I was inspired to make some changes in our lives like finally composting and trying to do a better job at reducing our carbon footprint by reducing our energy consumption.

There were a lot of pages dedicated to all of the "green" products that I could buy that would make a difference in the fight to restore the earth and protect our family's health. There were some really cool items that I thought that I might need to buy. But something about it all made me think...

As great as the suggestions in the articles were, I would much rather know about products that I could buy that would help other people. What I mean is this- are there companies out there that are giving back? There is Product Red (thank you to Saint Bono), there are Toms Shoes (for every shoe you buy, they give a pair to a child in need), Saints Coffee (when you buy a pound of coffee you feed an orphan for a month) and I wish that I could go on...

I would love to read an article about what companies are doing to help combat extreme poverty and where I can buy their products. I would love for it to be trendy to only buy products that give back. I would love to support companies with crazy business plans that give away an insane amount of their profits to the poor of the world. I know that this isn't a unique or brilliant name for it - but I will call it "Products Helping People." I would love for us to turn our mega-consumer mindset into something good and meaningful. I want my kids to be aware of the suffering that goes on in other parts of the world and to know that there are easy ways to start helping. (There is a lot of love going on here but you get my point).

So please help me to gather a list of products, websites, stores and any other suggestions you might have. What are companies doing to help our brothers and sisters that are suffering? Please comment if you have any suggestions and I will start to compile a list! Let's just start there and see what happens!