Starfish Impact supports social enterprise and companies with strong corporate social responsibility programs throughout the year, but we know that there is no better time to remind our friends about how easy it is to ‘do good’ than during the holiday gift giving season. This year’s three part Holiday Gift Guide list has a few great experiences, products, and online purchases that will make you feel good about gift giving this year! Also take a look at last year’s gift guide, which includes a number of great options worth checking out.
Local – Los Angeles
With Love Market and Café is a local market offering healthy food options in South Los Angeles. It also provides job opportunities through its commitment to local hiring, and a variety of community programs on healthy eating, budgeting, and exercise. It also has a meeting room that can be reserved for your next event. Perhaps this year, instead of giving a gift, invite a special friend to share a meal with you to catch up and give back together!
Food deserts create challenges not only in buying nutritious food for groceries, but also for finding healthy and affordable grab and go meals for working individuals. If you’ll be in South Los Angeles or Downtown Los Angeles, consider buying your lunch for your next meeting at Everytable.
Are you in charge of the office holiday party coming up? Feeling overwhelmed with the idea of cooking for the holidays for family? Let Los Angeles local 5000 Pies provide the catering of handcrafted, Long Beach-style deep-dish pizza and sweet pies. The pies are made 100% from scratch using fresh, seasonal, quality ingredients. A social enterprise of Fountain of Life Covenant Church, 5000 pies transforms the lives of young adults in West Long Beach through culinary employment and life skills coaching.
For many of us, beauty or bath products will be somewhere on our wish list this season. But many don’t realize that the industry is rife with dangerous and carcinogenic chemicals. That’s why we were so excited to be introduced to Santa Monica based Beautycounter recently, which is similar to a Sephora, except everything has been prescreened as safer or more effective options. Check out their Holiday gift section for inspiration too!
Los Angeles based Thrive Market is like the love child of Whole Foods, Instacart, and Costco, with the added benefit that they give back. They allow you to shop online for organic and non-GMO products, and by harnessing the purchasing power of members, at significant discounts. The best part is with every membership purchased, they give a free membership to a low-income family, teacher, veteran, or student. You can read more about how they do this and the other ways gifting a membership might be an easy gift choice for your friends or family at Thrive Gives.
Stay tuned for next week’s Holiday Gift Guide for Washington, DC local favorites!
Starfish Impact doesn’t receive anything in return for highlighting these companies and social enterprises. If you know of other great ideas for the holidays, or other social enterprises we should know about, let us know today!
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