Photo provided by Rick Montgomery
Native Oregonian, Rick Montgomery used to manage a food and wine company in Italy. Now he’s helping to feed children all over the world through the organization he founded: Global Roots. The organization reaches children as close to home as Portland and as far away as Kenya and Afghanistan.
Global Roots believes that food can save children. According to the web site, “by partnering with local communities who can provide on the ground engagement and by utilizing sustainable solutions, such as the “Children’s Gardens” program, Global Roots is reaching children in need from the poorest villages in Kenya to the remote valleys of the Himalayas and even right here in our own American schoolyards.” The organization partners with Portland Public Schools to establish kitchen gardens at schools like James John Elementary in St. John, Oregon. Over the course of many years of experience, Rick saw that “social exclusion is the beginning of violence in our country.” He was eager to find a way to access the kids who needed the most help: kids who were outcasts or who were being bullied by others. Teachers found that these kids would avoid the playground during recess. The kitchen gardens are a way to provide emotional support as well as teaching kids a healthy way to eat. Global Roots has a $200,000 per year budget and 100% of funding is raised from individual donors.
One Back Zebra is an organization that addresses violence in the workplace and trains workers and managers how to deal with it. The name is an acronym for Observe, Notify, Evacuate, Barricade, Act, and Care, and its mascot is said to be better at communicating imminent threats than any other animal. One Back Zebra “is the first emergency response seminar company to successfully merge emergency response techniques with the psychology of preemption and de-escalation.” The One Back Zebra team includes law enforcement, criminologists, psychologists, and social workers. “Workplace violence is up in the US, said Mr. Montgomery, “and we should worry about the homeless population and the mentally ill.” Plaid Pantry found that greeters strip people of anonymity and reduced in-store violence by 80%. There’s something about making a personalconnection with customers that helps diffuse potentially bad behavior.