Would you like to help?

A local nonprofit, Restoration Project is looking for about 10 people to help our local friends and neighbors who are either recovering from a mental illness or a head injury. The constituents, who range in age from adolescents to adulthood, learn as apprentices to refinish commercial furniture and upholstery while honing marketable skills.

The board, which meets each month school is in session, is considering opening a thrift shop. Members are looking for interested persons with retail, business and commerical real estate experience to move this project forward. Fund raisers and grant writers are also sought. Restoration Project is located on Beharrell Street in West Concord.

The snack that satisfies

We’ve all played the game “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon,” a spin-off of Broadway’s “Six Degrees of Separation,” where we name any Hollywood actor and connect that individual to a movie in which Mr. Kyra Sedgwick also stars. It’s a human web.

A former chairman of the Concord School Committee and Concord Carlisle Regional School Committee, along with his business partner, are now applying the theory to the real world, the one where 200 million children know nothing but hunger.

Lauren Walters of Concord, and Will Hauser, a 25-year-old social entrepreneur from California, launched Two Degrees Food, this past Monday, Jan. 10. The endeavor, based in San Francisco, is the first one-for-one food company that assists malnourished children around the world, while satisfying the less serious degree of hunger that drives the average American consumer to grab something quick to eat.

The name “Two Degrees,” represents the mission of the business and the short distance that separates us from a child dying of hunger. The company donates a nutrition pack to a hungry child for every nutrition bar sold. A nutrition pack is a medically formulated package of food approved by the World Health Organization. Broken down: You are eating for two. When you eat a nutritious snack, so does a malnourished child. The children of Malawi, Africa are the first recipients of Two Degrees. The company is working with Valid Nutrition and Partners In Health to fulfill its heroic mission.

Two Degrees nutrition bars are gluten-free, all-natural fusions of real fruits, toasted nuts and seeds and grains. The former creative chef and director of product development for Odwalla created the recipe. Bars come in three flavors: Apple Pecan, Cherry Almond and Chocolate Peanut. JuJu on Thoreau Street, is the only local retailer as of now, yet Two Degrees is still young.  You may also purchase a nine-bar box online here. One click, insert a few credit card numbers and feed nine deserving children all at once. Sounds like a great deal to me.

Do you have something you would like to share with your fellow Concordians? Contact me at mcb23@comcast.net and I will get the word out.