Hot off the presses, our Whole Planet Foundation opens in a new tab calendar is on sale now at Whole Foods Market stores throughout the US and Canada! At just $3 each, these calendars are perfect for home, office, stocking stuffers, gifts and more. Thanks to funding from our vendor partners, 100% of calendar sales goes to provide microlending support to our global communities. In addition to feeling good about helping, you’ll also receive more than $16 (Canada) and more than $20 (US) in coupons from the Whole Foods Market’s supplier community! You’ll save on your favorite items from companies like Nature’s Path, Earth’s Best, Amy’s Kitchen and Seventh Generation. Visit our calendar page to see the full list of coupons opens in a new tab.
This is our fifth year to create a calendar, and each year gets better. More value for you through coupons and more funds raised to help our microcredit clients. Last year, shoppers purchased more than $70,000 in calendars, which funded 312 microloans that empowered nearly 2,000 poor women and their family members to create or expand a home-based business and create prosperity. Each year these loans are repaid and re-loaned again and again, and with your help this year, Whole Planet Foundation can empower 2,000 more women with an opportunity to lift themselves out of poverty through entrepreneurship.
Whole Planet Foundation funds microcredit in 46 countries where Whole Foods Market sources products, and this year’s calendar features beautiful photographs of inspiring microcredit clients from Paraguay, Malawi, Sri Lanka, Nepal, the Dominican Republic, Rwanda, India, Cambodia, Turkey, Indonesia, Ecuador and the United States. Check out our featured microcredit client page opens in a new tab to learn about microcredit clients like Lourdes, who used her microloan to expand her neighborhood grocery store in the Villarrica region of Paraguay, where Whole Foods Market sources sugar.
As a microcredit client of Fundación Paraguaya opens in a new tab, she now has a support system and access to credit to invest in her own business, which after three years keeps growing and giving her hope for a better future. “When I first started, my store had a plain scale with different metal weights, a couple of shelves, very little merchandise and an old fridge,” Lourdes said. “Now I have a digital scale, a 400 liter freezer, two big fridges and a bigger quantity of merchandise.”Pick up your copy of the Whole Planet Foundation 2012 Calendar in your local US and Canada Whole Foods Market store through January. Thank you for your help providing a hand up to more than a million people!
