Jennifer Schmidt's blog

Window displays at Columbia’s flagship store in Portland highlight our work around the world. Photo courtesy of Columbia Sportswear

Our staff work in the world’s toughest places – from Sudan to Syria, and Colombia to the Congo. It’s our job at Portland HQ to support our people on the front lines, from logistics to finance to fundraising. But sometimes, it takes a little help from our friends.

This month, Columbia Sportswear, a global company headquartered in Portland, is providing visibility for our cause with larger-than-life window displays in their retail stores. They’re also donating 2,000 of their new Insect Blocker shirts to outfit our global field team. Last spring, they donated prototypes of these insect repellant shirts to our field staff in Haiti, who are working hard every day to help families recover and rebuild.

Tomorrow, they’re kicking off a campaign to engage their customers in supporting our work. Between May 17-31, Columbia will donate $1 to Mercy Corps, up to $10,000 in total, for each person who uses a smartphone to “check in” via Facebook Places at one of Columbia Sportswear’s retail stores in Portland, PDX Airport, Seattle, Minneapolis, Mall of America, or Chicago. Persons who participate in the social media check-ins will also receive 25% off of their purchase for that day. Visit Columbia’s blog for more details.

Each of us – no matter who we are or where we live – has something to contribute to help save and improve lives around the world. We’re thankful that Columbia is engaging its stores, its products, and its customers in this important cause.

Click here to read our press release about this campaign.

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Today the Mercy Corps team gathered at the Columbia Flagship store to 'check in' for change. Photo: Leah Hazard/Mercy Corps

At high noon, me and 25 of my red-t-shirted Mercy Corps colleagues rode the Max train down to Columbia Sportswear’s flagship store to help kick off a new social media ‘Check In’ campaign for Mercy Corps. For each person who uses their smartphone to ‘check in’ on Facebook Places at a Columbia retail store through the end of May, they’ll donate $1 to support our work – up to $10,000 total!

Our staff was psyched to kick off the campaign and help raise funds for our cause – but the 25% discount each person who checked in received didn’t hurt either!

Columbia is also donating 2,000 of their new Insect Blocker shirts to outfit our global field team and featuring our work to save and improve lives in window displays at retail stores in downtown Portland, PDX Airport, Seattle, Chicago, Mall of America, and Minneapolis.

We want to give a big shout out to all our friends at Columbia Sportswear for inspiring their customers to check in to change lives around the world. Thank you Columbia!

Click here to learn more about how Columbia Sportswear is supporting our work in the world’s toughest places.

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This afternoon Gayle Tzemach Lemmon talked with Mercy Corps’ communications director Joy Portella and supporters from around the country and the world about the importance of investing in women -- a theme of her New York Times bestselling book, The Dressmaker of Khair Khana.

This topic is clearly near to Gayle’s heart -- she is intensely passionate and extremely eloquent when talking about unsung heroines around the world who are transforming their communities.

Take a few minutes and listen for yourself, click here to download a recording of the webinar.

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It’s midnight in the slums of Jakarta. Four intrepid Ivy League co-eds, armed only with a video camera, tiptoe down a dark alley towards a door cracked open just enough to reveal the orange glow of a light within…

It sounds like the latest slasher movie doesn’t it? But in fact it’s a day in the life of a group of Master of Business Administration (MBA) students at MIT’s prestigious Sloan School of Management, who — in addition to studying finance and marketing — are learning to use their business acumen to make a difference in the world.

Here are two short video clips, so you can find out what this group of MBA students was doing walking around at this late hour. The answer will surprise you!

These students worked with Mercy Corps as part of MIT’s G-Lab (Global Entrepreneurship Lab), an innovative program in which teams of MBA students work with host companies in what is essentially a four-month unpaid mini-consulting project.

Mercy Corps' challenge to these students: turn a healthy food-cart pilot project into a self-sustaining enterprise that will provide affordable, nutritious food to poor children.

In Jakarta, street food sold from carts is often high in fat and sugar, lacking nutrients and prepared in unhygienic conditions, contributing to high rates of malnutrition among young children. Enter Mercy Corps’ Kedai Balitaku project (KeBAL for short) which translates to “My Child’s Café.” These brightly colored, child-friendly food carts provide healthy, safe and delicious food for children under five.

Two weeks ago, I went to MIT to meet the students and see their final presentation. They had terrific insights and creative solutions, as well as a business plan and set of financial tools that will help Mercy Corps' Indonesia team take this program to scale.

Four students, big impact. And more evidence of the limitless creativity that can be brought to bear in tackling seemingly intractable problems. Many thanks and best of luck to Erica Carlisle, Chris Lin, Libby Puttnam, and Emily Sporl, the Mercy Corps Indonesia G-Lab student team!

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January 25, 2010. Mercy Corps staff member, Cassandra Nelson, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti after the devastating earthquake. Photo: Jenny Vaughan/Mercy Corps

Last night we heard some tremendous firsthand accounts of the situation in Haiti from Mercy Corps’ Cassandra Nelson. She joined us by cell phone from Port-au-Prince and covered a lot of ground in the 45 minutes before her connection was lost, discussing our work in forgotten neighborhoods outside of the capital city, the challenges of delivering aid and the progress that is being made, conversations with survivors, and the plight of Haiti’s children.

Cassandra was joined by our Director of Global Emergency Operations Randy Martin, who shared his perspective on the significance of partnerships – both on the ground and with other aid groups and agencies – and discussed the importance of helping communities transition from receiving emergency aid to leading their own recovery.

Click here to hear a recording of the live, online briefing from Haiti. (Only the name field is required to get access to the recording.) If you have any trouble downloading the recording, click here for additional instructions.

Thanks to ReadyTalk who donated their services for the Haiti online briefing. And thanks especially to everyone who joined us – this work would not be possible without your support!

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Last night's Mercy Corps conference call featured two inspiring speakers - Mercy Corps' board chair Linda Mason and development specialist Jenny Vaughn (calling in from Africa at 2am her time!) - who shared an insider view of our work in the Congo and Central African Republic. Through their firsthand stories, Linda and Jenny really drove home how investing in women is key to fighting poverty!

If you missed the call, you can check out an audio and visual recording of the presentation at mercycorps.org/conferencecall.

If you have a chance to check it out, drop me a comment. I would love to hear what you think.

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