Why I Am Working Part-Time as a Change Agent with Better World Books, and How You and Your Company Can Benefit

I love this company.  I fell upon it one day in the parking lot of Harry's Farmers Market in Alpharetta, Georgia, and then read raves about it in Fast Company magazine, where I discovered, shock of shocks, that the company was headquartered right here in metro Atlanta!  Named BetterWorld Books, it is a for-profit social enterprise built on the triple-pronged foundation of economic, environmental, and social sustainability.  That's pretty much a dream company for me, as I am committed to sustainability in both my vocation as a professional writer and my avocation as a catalyst and advocate for creating a more sustainable world (I founded the sustainability commission when Dunwoody became the newest city in the United States, I helped start the largest community garden in the state, where Steve Ward from Better World Books helped plant for the food pantry with me, I wrote a book about sustainability, which, of course, I made sure was listed on Better World Books' site, blah, blah, blah).  In short, I live and breathe this stuff, so when I got an opportunity to become a Change Agent for Better World Books recently, well, you can imagine how much thought I needed to give that.

Better World Books provides an easy, free way for consumers to dispose of their books by donating them, thereby diverting millions of pounds of books from landfills each year, and a convenient way for people to purchase books online while donating book-for-book to those in need at the same time.  (Yes, it's the TOMS Shoes of books.)  

It supports established, effective literacy projects around the world and close to home while enabling drop box hosts to access a turnkey revenue stream that benefits them as well as their favorite local non-profits.   

To date, it has donated more than 5.5 million books, raised almost $10.5 million for literacy and libraries, and reused or recycled more than 66.5 million books.  And, frankly, this little chart that shows the annual environmental impact of just one box pretty much blows my mind:

In short, it's a win-win-win situation. 

Win: Employees of this innovative B-Corporation* don't have to choose between doing well and doing good while doing business.

Win: People with the means to buy and donate books benefit people and organizations in need, who receive books and bucks that can change their lives (see an example of this here).

Win: Companies that want to do good and/or accentuate the good they already do can now easily and publicly do so, while also generating a little extra cash and helping their local communities.

Encouraging donations is as easy as 1-2-3:

1. Shout it out.  Use your full bag of communications tools to let your customers, employees, suppliers, friends, everyone know that there is a box at your location for their convenience.  

2.  Give incentives.  Run special contests, sweepstakes, or other incentives to encourage book donations.  At company locations, maybe the person who donates the most in a month wins a free latte, or anyone who donates during a set period of time gets entered in a sweepstakes for the prime company parking spot.  Sports arenas could give a buck off ticket prices or a discount on concessions.

3.  Share.  Feature people donating to your drop box on your website, Facebook and Twitter.  Have any celebrities involved with your organization?  Show them donating and you may possibly garner some media attention. Be sure to circle back and blog about how the money earned is used--people really love to feel like they have truly helped.   Most of all, have fun! Nothing attracts more positive action than positive energy.

Need more help brainstorming ways to align your Better World Books drop box with your company's marketing and/or corporate social responsibility objectives?  I love to brainstorm ideas, and I'd love to help your Better World Books drop box program achieve overwhelming success.  First things first--let's get the boxes in place.  Email me from anywhere in the United States or the United Kingdom and I can make this happen for you.

Learning as I grow,

--Pattie Baker

* Better World Books was a founding member of B-Corp and is now joined by almost 500 other companies nationwide that harness the power of private enterprise to create public benefit.  I love it, love it, love it.

Why I Am Working Part-Time as a Change Agent with Better World Books, and How You and Your Company Can Benefit

A Harvest of Good That Explodes from Within (Introducing my Brother-in-Law, Mitch Baker)

And so I dug them out, the crowded plants whose leaves had been heavily harvested this week during the big Thanksgiving food pantry harvest (111 pounds, whereas two years ago it had been maybe 6).  I replanted just turnips, already strong with new leaves, my community garden bed undergoing a transformation, yet again, from crop to crop, from season to season.  There is no off-season when you are feeding people in need.  Hunger doesn't take a holiday, and constant attention to what's going to be "harvestable" next makes the difference between overflowing buckets and empty-handed.

My brother-in-law had called and was on his way, walking several miles, loving the hills of Atlanta after his flat walks in Florida, where he lives.  While waiting, I worked my way through the garden, adding turnips to my friend Bob's bed, where enormous lettuce heads had just been harvested; removing lettuce bases from David's bed to transplant over at the food pantry garden under the cold frame for winter growing, and replacing them with cold-hardy collards and kale; and watering the middle-school-students' bed and noting that this space which was nothing by grassy ground a mere month before would be ready to harvest when next they come. 

Mitch came bounding around the bend, swinging his arms, breathing in the cool morning air.  The previous year he couldn't get up the hill in front of my house, and here he was, strong, energetic, happy (the pictures to the right show him last year, and now).  He had pretty much been issued a death sentence last December 29 by his doctor, and that day, that very day, he changed.  In the following five months, through diet, exercise, and sheer will, he dropped 94 pounds and changed the trajectory of the rest of his life.  

We went over to the food pantry garden, where so many families had harvested this past week, where we have a plan in place to literally quadruple the size of the garden by summer for less than twenty dollars.  It was just a little more than a year ago when that space was nothing but grass as well.  It had transformed.  

I asked Mitch to "just do what you want to do" for my camera, and he did this (see picture at right).  And in that moment, I knew.  There is no time when we, as humans, are not transforming something, including ourselves.  There is no seed of change that isn't growing, right now, whether you can see it or not.  There will always be a harvest, of something, even if it's the knowledge to do something different next time.  And there are moments, such as this, when the harvest of good is so overwhelming that it overflows, that it explodes from within, and expresses itself in such a renewal of life's joy that you no longer question.  You simply no longer question.  Or, at least, I don't.

(And yes, ladies, Mitch is available.  He lives in Delray Beach, Florida, which is one of my favorite cities on earth--see one of my many posts about it, titled National Model of Sustainability.  He is kind, funny, smart, hard-working, poetic, and really open-minded.  He is not just my brother-in-law but also one of my very closest friends.  I'm feeling a bit like a yenta after a match that recently occurred with my friend David and another friend of mine as a result of this blog, so why not try with Mitch, too, right? Artsy, outdoorsy ladies who live in or near Delray Beach: email me for an intro.)

A Harvest of Good That Explodes from Within (Introducing my Brother-in-Law, Mitch Baker)

Life Has No Lesson Plan (from a Garden to a Global Math Challenge to the Most Sustainable Shoes in the U.S.)

My older daughter is currently wrapping up 36 consecutive hours spent locked in her high school with 75 other students and one of the most passionate teachers I've ever met. They are joining schools all over the nation and world as participants in an applied mathematics competition where teams of four (40 percent of whom are girls, by the way, and that number goes up every year) choose one of two real-world problems (how to structure a bike-share program in a major city, as an example of one of last year's challenges) and use math modeling and logic to propose comprehensive solutions.  

I volunteered to chaperone the first night, which meant staying up all night (except for right after I said, at around 3 AM, "I can definitely do this!" and then, with my next breath, almost impaled myself with the scissors I was using to make seed packets as holiday gifts as I fell fast asleep for two hours.) This photo is a shot of where I set up "camp," right outside the media center that served as the "dorm" for the girls.  Yes, the night, like the photo, was a blur (and I was thankful for extremely good company from another mom, who spent the time sorting photos and chatting with me).  You haven't felt hope for the future until you see 76 ethnically-diverse 16 and 17-year-olds exploring open-ended real-world math problems, by choice, over an entire weekend, and having a great time doing it (the frisbees and scooters in the school hallways helped, of course).  

The most important parts of this equation?  This challenge is open ended.  There is no right answer.  It requires creativity, innovation, and original thought.  There are no grown-ups telling them what to do.  They are able to work together with peers to find solutions.  They are working on real-world problems to propose answers that could actually be implemented.  And they are having fun while doing it.

Back up a few days, to my younger daughter's health class.  Kids bounded down the hill from the middle school for the third week in a row now (here is how it started), through the gate that was bolted for years and now allows them access to our community garden right across the street from their school.  They saw the simple goals on the blackboard.  They know how to do all these tasks now, and where everything they need is located, and thus set out to achieve them with no other direction.  They self-divided into teams, student leadership emerged, solutions (such as how to use a wheelbarrow with no wheel--2 and 4 of them carried it at a time, over and over again) proved successful, and answers to questions they didn't even know they had became evident (how long does it take for garlic to start to grow?  That would be a week).  

My 16-year-old has never had her hand in a school garden because every single administration throughout the years either wasn't interested in a school garden or was waiting for those perfect curriculum tie-ins, those lesson plans that propose pre-determined conclusions and I believe thereby kill the creativity, joy, and wonder of discovery ("Today we are going to learn the life cycle of a bean"). (This actually worked out, however, because it further inspired me to expand my home garden over the years so that my children could learn from it). (Blatant book plug here--I could use your help getting the word out.  I'll be blunt--reviews have been very generous: here is the latest; but sales are sluggish.)

I want to tell you for certain--you don't need lesson plans.  Anyone who doubts me just needs to see children in a garden to know for sure that they learn massive amounts of information from math to science to language arts to history, from physical education to health to art to even music (the calls of the birds, the rustle of the leaves, the howl of the wind, the rhythm of shovels in motion).  

More importantly, they learn they are necessary, that they matter.  They learn how to do real work to grow real food.  They learn by doing, by asking questions, by listening to conversations, by noticing changes from week-to-week, by testing their hypotheses without adult-led pre-determined destinations. Squeezing the juice from rotting tomatoes into a bed of soil, as one group of girls (including my younger daughter) did after wondering about it?  Let's see what happens!  

If you're a teacher who is required to submit lesson plans, I'd suggest you simply list a few goals, go to the garden, and see what happens and fill your lesson plan in afterwards.  If you are a parent who is tired of waiting, I say don't. 

 

Being immersed in a can-do, create-solutions environment can change your life in many ways.  Here's what happened to a girl who grew up in an entrepreneurial, art-based family, where a pottery studio was just a normal part of the house and providing professional artists to major theme parks was a day's work.  She saw a need for something, and created it (even though she had never made this particular thing before).  She wondered how to make it better.  She kept exploring, asking, questioning, connecting.  She tried out solutions, made them better, tried them out again.  She, frankly, didn't stop until she created what are right now the most sustainable shoes in the United States.  Minimalist shoes that mimic the joy and health benefits of going barefoot.  Made of recycled materials that are fully recyclable.  Total cradle-to-cradle adherence to best practices, and beyond.  And mom-friendly, folding up and fitting in a bag, going from walking to school to today's tetherless work sites (have laptop, will travel) to wherever else the day takes you in a snap.

Meet Rachelle Kuramoto of Kigo Footwear, whom I met this week and whose Flit shoe model I've been, well, flitting around in all weekend (including that night in the high school).  TOMS Shoes (which, as you know, I love), move over and make room.  There is a new shoe in town (and one which works better with socks than my TOMS Shoes, so it will take over my winter wear), and my feet are definitely happy feet--and I'm not talking about the penguin here!  But you want to know what makes me even happier about meeting Rachelle?  Her thoughts about The Art of Making Mistakes. Her extraordinary, immediately-evident poise and strength.  Her positive mental and physical energy (she is running the Big Sur Half Marathon today, by the way).  The fact that she is in this world, thinking, creating, doing, and that I now consider her my friend. And the fact that I could tell my daughters about her and her company, as another example of what's possible in this ever-changing world.

Listen, 90% of the future's jobs don't exist (and what will become of me in a world where print is possibly dead is a big, fat question to me right now as well).  If you have not seen this excellent 4-minute video yet, I strongly suggest you watch it.  I saw it several years ago, and it immediately changed my life, and the type of advice I give my daughters.  It continually reinforces for me the extraordinary value of creative thinking and innovative risk-taking needed for the future (skills most American children are not learning in school), and how I will go to the mat (or the garden, or the high school overnight) to make sure my daughters are immersed and encouraged in these attributes.  Because, guess what?  Life has no lesson plan.

Life Has No Lesson Plan (from a Garden to a Global Math Challenge to the Most Sustainable Shoes in the U.S.)

Life's Crosswalks UPDATED

It wasn't that long ago that I asked of city officials everywhere, "Have You Walked a Mile with a Child? (And Other Questions about Walk/Bike-Friendly Greenwashing)"  I love that post, because in the simple 99 words that followed, I pretty much encapsulated the last 11 years of my life, and the challenges we've had walking and biking to school.  A little has changed--a crosswalk here and there, a light that now allows enough pedestrian cross time, a little more awareness.  But most of the things I outlined did not.  

However, there has been a bigger change.  A change that I knew was coming.  A change that I warned you about in Hallelujah (see pages 156-159 in my book--you can be reading the Kindle version in seconds for much less than the cost of a latte), when I told you that there was a small aperture of opportunity for when your children are old enough to go the distance and young enough to not care what their hair looks like when they get there.

That change is called growing up. It's called changing schools, changing life stages, getting involved with friends and clubs, and other things that make a half-hour walk or bike ride to or from school not something anymore on the priority list in a city where it is difficult to do so (and certainly not with mom).  And that change has happened in my home.  And so, no, you don't see me out there anymore, sticking out my arm and begging cars to stop at crosswalks, or taking photos of trucks parked on sidewalks in our pedestrian path.  In all parts of my daughters' lives, in fact, I am No Longer Julie McCoy, Cruise Director.  We have all crossed over to the other side of the street, and things are different now.

I am, once again, full-time, Pattie Baker, Concepts/Content Provider.  I knew I was "back" the other day, when I wore a pair of shoes that I hadn't worn in, oh, 17 years (are they possibly back in fashion?), and the sound of them clicking on the floor reminded me of that other-me, the corporate person I used to be.  I was working at the headquarters of UPS and was pregnant with my older daughter.  I project-managed and wrote sales and marketing campaigns for national accounts, and worked with external design firms to do so.   Every time they came to the corporate building, I had to go down to the front lobby to escort them up.  As my pregnancy progressed, this got more and more exhausting, and the sound of those clicking shoes took me right back.  I ended up having my baby (not at the office!) and launching my freelance writing career during maternity leave.  I came back for 6 weeks, during which time I was juggling all of this.  As luck or serendipity or, my favorite, kismet, would have it, the company had a buy-out, which I took, and I've been running my own business, raising my daughters, and juggling, ever since.  (See this post that mentions UPS, and my relationship with it--interestingly, it is the third most viewed post out of 732 I've written in five and half years.)

Over the past 16 years of my business (following 10 years on corporate staffs, including Turner Broadcasting, USA TODAY, and MetLife), I've written complete corporate marketing campaigns, proprietary magazines, consumer-facing and business-to-business blogs, all types of newsletters, and editorial feature articles for local, regional, and national publications.  I've had terrific long-term clients at various times over the years (Turner Broadcasting, American Cancer Society, Cox Enterprises, New Life Journal) that have required me working at odd hours (hence, the 4 AM wake-up habit) to get it all done while juggling a growing family (I went through my entire second pregnancy without most of my clients knowing, and then took just two weeks off). And I've gotten nice comments like these:

"Her writing needs almost no editing, and she has consistently met every deadline I've given her."--Maggie Cramer, Managing Editor of New Life Journal

“Pattie's creativity, insightfulness, and truly exceptional writing skills make her a key asset to every project she undertakes. Her enthusiasm and positive energy are inspiring, while her encyclopedic knowledge and detailed understanding of complex sustainability issues are invaluable from a client perspective. For organizations developing, implementing or expanding a sustainability program, whether basic or ambitious in nature, Pattie can bring new clarity and success to your project. Highly recommended!”--Judy Knight, Director of Marketing and PR at Southface

 Now that I'm no longer walking and biking to school, I have what can actually be called a normal work day, and I am therefore actively pursuing additional clients.  I am looking specifically for two new 10-hour-per-week contract writing relationships. My specialty is all aspects of sustainability, including small business marketing (see 101 Marketing Ideas with Pattie Baker, which I wrote for a Cox subsidiary, specifically for small businesses).  I typically hit the ground running for my clients and they get on-time, on-target deliverables with no overhead or benefits costs.  Short-staffed but aren't hiring full-timers?  Not able to afford an agency's mark ups?  I fill that gap.  Contact me here.

So many companies are making a positive difference in the world through their triple-bottom-line business decisions.  I help you get the word out in ways that matter.  To all my FoodShed Planet friends (especially the Atlanta Greenies), I would appreciate it if you could get the word out about me, as I hope you feel I've done that about you and your initiatives over the years.

I am excited about where the journey will take me next, as I know it's not taking me to school on a bike anymore.  And that's now finally okay.

Stay tuned to FoodShed Planet each Sunday (and more frequent updates on Twitter @pattiebaker) for stories about:

* The food pantry garden (I've been asked to guest-blog about it on a major site);

* The middle school relationship with the largest community garden in my county (which was a grassy field just two years ago when I helped start it) (I call this photo "Coach Burdette standing in the light as his students jump for joy");

* The surge in sustainability support in my city (which was the newest city in the United States three years ago when I started the sustainability commission);

* Operation Plant a Row 2012 (here's a handy link to my series of articles on this initiative);

* An additional exciting year-long project right here on FoodShed Planet for 2012 (hint: it is related to something in my book, aligned with the changes happening in my family);

* And a few other surprises!

A fiercely independent person (having come from tough immigrant stock*--if you know my mom, you know what I mean!), I have learned over the years (especially since community gardening) to ask for help when I need it, and I welcome your help with open arms now.  And don't hold it against me that I grew up a Mets fan, as indicated in this photo--I married a Yankees fan!  Besides, my maiden name was Kulfan and the big joke in our house was that we weren't Mets or Yankees fans, we were Kulfans (that still makes me laugh, Dad).  And, as always, I continue to trust this unpredictable, surprising, uniquely-unrepeatable journey called life.
  
* My heritage is 50% Irish, 50% Czechoslovakian, and I am a second generation American from all four grandparents.  My dad worked at the headquarters of Metropolitan Life Insurance Company (now known as MetLife) at One Madison Avenue in New York City for 35 years and we had many pencils in our house that said that name on the side of them.  I was the only first-grader in my class who knew how to spell Czechoslovakian and metropolitan, and I was horribly proud of this!

UPDATE (11/14/11): Just got a gig as a Change Agent for Better World Books.  The company is committed to triple-bottom-line sustainability (http://www.betterworldbooks.com/info.aspx?f=bottomlines), and is one of only five B-Corporations in GA (http://www.bcorporation.net/).  It donates a book to global literacy projects for every book sold (and my book is even for sale on its website!) and, of course, it helps keep books out of landfills.  The property owners make money from the BWB drop boxes every single month (10% goes to the them, 5% goes to the non-profit of their choice). Email me if you want to host a drop box on your commercial or institutional property anywhere in the U.S.!

Life's Crosswalks UPDATED

The Exciting Return of Open Garden (and How a Middle School Got a School Garden in Less Than Two Weeks)

And so it was that I was just minding my business, tending what I already have going on, when a physical education coach at the middle school directly across a side street from the community garden contacted me.  He teaches a 9-week health class.  Instead of running laps on this track one class day each week, he wanted the kids to do real work that matters to grow real food.  He wanted to start a community garden at his school, but was told "someone is already working on it," (which would be a high school student-led initiative that aims to leverage the school garden movement already underway in my city into one umbrella collective) yet no work has started on the grounds and the reality of that plan happening this year is slim.  (By the way, here is my school garden site-survey post from December 9, 2009, Sunny, Flat and Possible, which includes my video about the prime location at this middle school for a garden).  He wondered if the class could come to the community garden (across the street and a short walk from the easy-to step-over gate by the track pictured in this photo) instead.  His class would only have 55 minutes to get there, to work, and to get back in time.  Would this be possible?

I recognized this man immediately as a passion person.  I felt it when he emailed and then spoke with me on the phone.  And I will tell you right now, wherever you are on our FoodShed Planet, that when you are faced with a passion person, "no" is not an answer.  I know this because I am one.

Click here to see 2-minute video

The challenge in this situation?  A bolted gate at the park (the main entrance is too long a walk in another direction).  See my short video here about it.  The parks director of our city originally told me that one day there would be a new gate, but for now that one could not be opened easily.  The answer was no.  I told him that if we could not find a way for the children to have safe, pedestrian access to the park at this entry point, then this relationship with the school simply would not happen. I started thinking about Plan B, because I knew I could not go back to the coach and tell him no. 

The parks director, Brent Walker, agreed to meet with me.  We walked the fence line.  We crossed a weedy field and climbed a precipice.  We evaluated the route the kids would be taking from the school property, right by the track, right beyond the trees.  We hopped the fence on the way back.  And I don't know if the sight of a 48-year old mom hopping a fence is what did it; or the realization that it was simply ridiculous to let this little, obviously surmountable barrier stand in the way of a terrific, new relationship that would immediately benefit 30 children and enable this middle school to instantaneously say it has a school garden; or the fact that Brent is a passion person, too, who realized, "This, I can do."  But Brent looked at me and said, "Yes." 

And he did.  

And Coach Burdette and his class came.

And I stood there, under the trees beside the garden, welcomed them, and said, "You are the very first school class to come to this community garden, and as of right now, this moment, the middle school officially has a school garden."

They filled the bed that a local city council candidate sponsored for them and that my friend, Bob, built for them, to grow food for the food pantry (on which, school statistics would suggest, at least 30% of them may rely).  They raked leaves to use as a carbon source to mix with the pumpkins (leftover from a church fundraiser) they each got to smash to make compost, in which my friend Don led them.  They planted.  They watered.  They worked.  They learned.  And they are coming back again this week.  And next week.  And every single week of school after that, passing the baton to the next 9-week class and then the next. 

I heard kids says things like, "This is fun," "When do we get to do this again?" and "Can we come and work whenever we want?" One girl came up to me and said proudly, "When I lived in Florida, I got up every day at 4:30 and worked in my grandmother's field.  She payed me."  And then she added, softly, almost in a whisper, "I still get up at 4:30 every day, you know."  I looked at her and said, "So do I" and we both smiled at each other, no other words necessary.

* We wondered if they would be able to handle wheelbarrows full of the heavy compost.  They are.  

* We questioned if they would be able to stay "on task."  They are.  

* We questioned whether real work with real learning would be possible with so many kids and so little time.  It is.  

And for those of you who might be involved with elementary school gardens, I have to tell you.  This was my first time working with a middle school class in a garden, and the middle school may be the sweet spot for school gardens--the kids don't need or want much adult hand-holding, they love to work in teams, and they are capable of doing far more than you may realize.  I told them "I'm going to tell you the goals each week--you figure out how you want to get them achieved.  There are no wrong answers."

A number of people who have read my book comment about Open Garden, which is featured in it. The line I most often hear is, "You must really miss Open Garden," because, yes, I wrote about it with passion.  Open Garden was the name I gave to the event I hosted once a week for months one year where I would swing open my garden gate and invite the children of the neighborhood in to do hands-on gardening projects.  It was a remarkable experience, but its time had passed and it had not yet been replaced in my life.

When those kids and that coach (whom I had not even met in person before that day) came ambling down that path, I felt my throat choke up a bit as I realized--it was the return of Open Garden. And when the coach called me afterwards, his voice gushing with excitement, he told me that his other classes were mad that they were not involved, and I told him that maybe, just maybe, the time may finally be right for the school garden right on their campus to take root. I mean, look at it this way--every single class that coach gets in his class after this school year will have had the experience of an elementary school garden.  They will expect it once they get to the middle school.

When I was initially trying to figure out how to make this work, someone said to me, "Maybe next year the new gate will be in and this will be possible," and I replied, "These kids don't have a year to wait to improve their health and knowledge.  They have now."  And now they have a school garden.

What can you help make happen now, today, where you live?  Don't take no for an answer.  If you get push-back, find another solution.  There is always another solution.  And you may be surprised to find you are surrounded by more passion people than you realize.

The Exciting Return of Open Garden (and How a Middle School Got a School Garden in Less Than Two Weeks)

Kindle Version Available through Holiday Season for Just $1.99

Click here

The Kindle version of my book is  now available in all Amazon markets.  I'm offering special pricing of US $1.99 (or equivalent local currency) for the Kindle version throughout the holiday season to encourage maximum accessibility. 

* This book contains inspiring stories and actionable tips, not just about food but also food for thought on a whole range of topics that encourage you to become more resilient and healthier, and to increase eco-literacy in your children.

* This book makes it easy (and fun) to dig in and make a difference in your garden, your family, and your city.  

* This book will make you think, laugh, possibly even cry, and definitely want to plant something (or even ride your bike for the first time in years, or make my famous Meal Muffins).   

* This book chronicles a joy-based journey, and invites you along for the ride.  

* This book puts a stake in the ground about a particular place in the world at a particular time in history, what went wrong, and what one mom is doing to try to make things better (and what you can do, too).

* You will look around you differently as a result of reading this book, and you will feel, finally, a little bit of control in an increasingly chaotic world.  

Here is a recent review of Food for My Daughters, written by a well-known writer in Texas (whom I've never met in person) named Pamela Price. Here's an excerpt: 

I love this book . . . The text is warm, witty, accessible, and engaging–just like all of Pattie’s writings. Written in a seasonal garden journal format, this memoir of motherhood and vittle raisin’ is also chockablock with tips, ideas and resources. It’ll go on my shelf next to Michael Pollan’s work and represent a Southern gal’s POV on a complicated set of issues related to food safety/security and well-being. (I think Pattie may be a transplant to the South, but we will claim her!)

Here is the tweet sent out by the Southface Energy Institute yesterday:  

Sustainable Foodies: 'Food for My Daughters' a FAB book by Atl author Pattie Baker, now on Kindle, $1.99. A MUST READ! http://goo.gl/UtkET

Here is a tweet sent out by Katherine Gordon, the founder and owner of Maternal Instinct, a creative communications agency based in Palo Alto that specializes in helping major corporations market more successfully to women (who make or influence 85% of all consumer purchasing decisions): 

Beautiful story about kids, food, gardening, sustainability + more just $1.99 thru the holidays. I loved this book! bit.ly/vYxmjx

See the book's website here for more media coverage, plus select readings from the book, a video about it, some photos, and more.  See the US site for customer reviews.  See the links below to "Like"!  "Gefallt mir"! "J'aime"! 

US: Order here

UK: Order here

Germany: Order here

France: Order here

If you could do me this favor, please take a moment and pass this post on via your blog, social media outreach, or over-the-fence or waiting-for-the-bus chats.  You don't have to be a gardener (or farmer, as I was recently called in O: The Oprah Magazine) to benefit from the positive messages in this book.

I love this book.  I wrote it for my daughters.  And now I am excited to be able to finally share it with you, all over our FoodShed Planet, in the most affordable and easiest way.

A percentage of the proceeds from the sale of copies of Food for My Daughters, in all formats, will be donated to help grow food for those in need. In fact, it already has.

And, by the way, I do not yet have a Kindle.  Reading a book is a very kinesthetic experience for me.  In fact, I wrote about my "relationship" with books as a guest blogger on Better World Books' blog today, after I was invited to do so as a result of my Jamie post.

Kindle Version Available through Holiday Season for Just $1.99