Whole Foods Market shoppers have an annual opportunity to donate at the registers and empower the poor through microcredit. This year's campaign goal was $1 million and you donated $1.8 million - wow! Thanks to you, Whole Planet Foundation will be able to serve impoverished communities in South America. Last year, your generosity enabled us to expand microlending support to Africa.

This microcredit client's home-based business is growing coffee in the Nyeri Province of Kenya where Whole Foods Market sources coffee (although not from microcredit clients.) Whole Planet Foundation is partnering with microlending organization Jamii Bora Trust and Unitus, an international microfinance accelerator, in Kenya in order to make a signficant impact on global poverty by increasing access to life-changing microfinance services for the working poor. Whole Planet Foundation support of $657,174 will be leveraged several times over to reach an estimated 77,246 clients in three years. In Ethiopia, we partner with A Glimmer of Hope Foundation in the coffee-growing regions of Oromia and Harrar.  Our support of $500,000 over three years will enable Ethiopian microfinance partners to reach an estimated 5,686 clients.
Jamii Bora Trust photos courtesy of Adam Huggins.

This microcredit client lives and works in Kibera, the largest urban slum in Sub-Saharan Africa. Just before the post-election violence, she sold Maize in Toi Market, where she sits today. After the violence tore apart Kibera, the market and many people's businesses, she wasn't sure how she'd get back on her feet. Through Jamii Bora Trust, she was able to take out a small loan to rent a section of the newly rebuilt Toi Market, the largest marketplace in the Kibera area, that provides employment for the majority of Kibera. With a fresh start and a new outlook, she is planning for the future. She currently sells maize all day but is planning for a larger loan that will enable her to collaborate with a few other vendors to start selling their maize at wholesale. See more entrepreneurs

Whole Planet Foundation is proud to spotlight the Supplier Alliance for Microcredit, an alliance of like-minded companies planting seeds of prosperity around the globe. Together, these companies have committed $1.05 million for microlending projects in communities that supply Whole Foods Market stores with products.

This recipe was inspired by microcredit client Letegebrial who runs a chick-pea roasting business in Ethiopia. See Recipe

Whole Foods Market U.S. stores raised funds and awareness during campaign events and the P Street store in Washington, D.C. raised the most! Thanks P Street team members and shoppers!

Congratulations! Top campaign fundraising cashiers Mike Beard of WFM Old Town, Virginia (2008) and Michael Zabrek, pictured above, of WFM Tampa, Florida (2009) will visit Guatemalan microcredit clients and their home-based businesses, hike to a coffee finca that supplies our stores with product, and build carbon-efficient stoves in a Mayan community. Learn more

Whole Planet Foundation is supporting microcredit clients in Peru where Whole Foods Market sources onions, in rice-producing communities in Thailand and in Haiti where we source mangoes. See where we work

Check out our latest posting on Whole Foods Market's blog, Whole Story.

Connect with other friends of microcredit. Thanks for supporting Whole Planet Foundation.