Act now, and pledge to end hunger

Back in September, during the Hunger Challenge, Tyson Foods asked readers to post comments on a blog post, which in turn triggered a delivery of thousands of pounds of food to the San Francisco Food Bank. It was a powerful grassroots effort that required so little on the part of each participant. A comment? That’s nothing…and yet, in this case, it was a very big something.

Tyson Foods is doing it again, just in time for the South by Southwest Interactive Festival (SXSWi) in Austin, Texas. I learned from Beth Kanter (via Twitter, and then via her blog) that Tyson has joined with Share Our Strength to put together the Pledge to End Hunger campaign. To participate, all you have to do is visit the Pledge to End Hunger site and make your commitment to contribute to end hunger, especially for children, in this country. You can pledge to donate money to Share Our Strength, pledge to volunteer, or pledge to share the word about this campaign with your family, friends, Facebook and Twitter contacts, or blog readers.

The campaign needed 1000 pledges to send a truck of food to Austin in time to be part of SXSWi. They hit that mark within 28 hours of the campaign’s launch. However, now the effort continues. Tyson Foods will deliver two more trucks, bearing 140,000 pounds of food per truck, to the state with the most pledges by the end of tomorrow. As of this morning, Indiana was in the lead with 410 pledges, with Texas and California trailing behind.

Won’t you consider making a pledge? Even if you don’t have a blog or a Facebook account, you can still share the word with your friends, neighbors and coworkers the old-fashioned way. This effort doesn’t have to be expensive or time-consuming.

But what a difference that small effort can make.