Charitable Gift Giving

A few weeks ago, Honest Ade did something pretty fun. As part of the Honest Cities campaign, they set up stands of Honest Ade drinks in twelve cities around the United States. Then, they put a donation box where people who took the drinks were asked to deposit a dollar.

The results are in. In the irony to end all ironies, Chicago turned out to be the most honest with 99% of people paying. Of course, it was possible for people to stuff the ballot box with extra money to raise their percentage, something Chicago is very good at (I kid ya Chicago, I love ya, with your Wrigley Building and Union Stockyards).

Sadly, New York City ended up finished dead last at 86% honest. To defend my home city, we’re a city where you are constantly rushing from one place to the next, and don’t have time to stop and read signs or see that cameras are filming you. And it’s not uncommon to get free stuff (Long time readers of the blog will know I’ll occasionally mention free stuff I get on the streets of Manhattan, including some delicious Snapple Troparocka I got a while back).

Anyway, congrats to Chicago and to Honest Ade for a fun campaign. Aside from being fun, the “honest dollars” across the country were donated to some great causes, including:

• City Year – 2,779 (56% of the vote) will receive $5,000
• Share Our Strength – 1,451 (29% of the vote) will receive $3,000
• Rails-to-Trails Conservancy – 750 (15% of the vote) will receive $2,000

While on Honest Ade’s website, I noticed they have other great programs. For one thing, they have a kid’s drink that comes in convenient pouches. I always feel bad when I use drink pouches like Capri Sun; after three sips, the drink is gone and there’s a big foil pouch that’ll clog up a landfill somewhere.

With their Drink Pouch Brigade, users can collect drink pouches and send them back to be made into cool products like this Messenger Bag. In addition, Honest Kids will contribute $0.02 per Honest Kids drink pouch you collect to the charity, school or non-profit organization of your choice. If you’ve got all the kids in your organization drinking these things, this can add up quickly. Not to mention that the drinks themselves have less sugar and are produced to be healthy and organic. So you can buy Honest Kids Drinks in Pouches and start collecting those pouches!