How can we better help the homeless? It’s an undying question — and as we near the colder weather, it’s a question that is asked even more.

Known as The Gubbio Project, this was initiated in 2004 by Father Louis Vitale of the church, and Shelly Roder, a community activist.

Each day, hundreds of people sleep on the church pews, under blankets provided by the staff. While the church is open for churchgoers who need to visit during the day, two-thirds of the building remains reserved for the Project.

In fact, 95 per cent of those surveyed said they always or usually feel safe at The Gubbio Project, and those who pass through are not treated like prisoners as they are in many shelters.



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Supermarkets around the world should be commended for banning plastic bags, but there's another single-use foe on the environmental radar: produce packaging. Sales of some vegetables have soared by up to 300 per cent following moves by a number of New Zealand supermarkets to ditch plastic packaging.

"A group of New World supermarkets have abandoned the use of plastic wrapping for virtually all of their fruit and vegetables in a project labelled 'food in the nude'. Pioneered by the New World store at Bishopdale in Christchurch, it has led to stunning sales figures.

"We monitor them year on year and after we introduced the concept we noticed sales of spring onions, for example, had increased by 300 per cent," says Bishopdale owner Nigel Bond. "There may have been other factors at play but we noticed similar increases in other vegetable varieties like silver beet and radishes.

"When we first set up the new shelving our customers were blown away," he says. "It reminded me of when I was a kid going to the fruiterer with my Dad, you could smell the fresh citrus and spring onions. By wrapping products in plastic we sanitise and deprive people of this experience; it (dispensing with plastic) was a huge driver for us."


Of the 300 million tons of plastic produced worldwide every year, half is used just once and thrown away, while only nine per cent is recycled. In New Zealand about 252,000 tonnes of plastic waste goes into landfill each year, a significant amount also ending up in our waterways and ultimately the sea.



Bond says eight or nine New World supermarkets in the South Island have followed Bishopdale's example, a move which is part of a suite of sustainable practices adopted by New World owner Foodstuffs.

"I went on a study tour to the United States and saw what the Whole Foods supermarket chain is doing over there," he says. "They have a massive range of fresh food and their merchandising is almost an art form.

Bond began discussions with growers and suppliers, most of whom he says were happy to look at ways of providing produce free of plastic packaging (Foodstuffs is also continuing to work with suppliers to look at how it can be reduced across-the-board including areas other than produce).

A new refrigeration shelving system for displaying fresh fruit and vegetables was installed along with a process known as 'misting' to help keep items fresh.

"Vegetables are 90 per cent water and studies have shown that misted produce not only looks better, retains its colour and texture, but also has higher vitamin content," Bond says. "We've also installed a reverse osmosis system that treats the water by removing 99 per cent of all bacteria and chlorine, so we are confident the water we're misting with remains pure."

Bond says some produce - including berries, grapes and some tomatoes - still come in plastic containers while mushrooms are packaged in cardboard trays. Most of this packaging is, however, recyclable.

Although many suppliers are reviewing the way produce is packaged, Bond believes manufacturers don't always understand what consumers want: "We know, but we are like an intermediary, we sell what they give us. I think manufacturers have a much bigger part to play."

New World is also trialling another initiative – bring your own containers. The trial, in which customers can use BYO containers for meat and seafood, is under way in a number of stores including Howick in Auckland, Hastings, Levin and Rototuna.

"Take-up has been slow," says Brendon Jones, owner-operator at New World in Howick, "but we're committed to conducting the trial. We have limited it so far to the butchery and seafood counters, where potential food safety risks are reduced because these products are likely to be cooked after being purchased."

He says Foodstuffs is also trialling paper alternatives to foil seafood bags and fibre-based deli trays.

Foodstuffs have signed the NZ Plastic Packaging Declaration which is committed to making all store and private label packaging 100 per cent reusable, recyclable or compostable by 2025. It has also introduced recyclable food trays – a measure that gives customers the opportunity to divert more than 80 million trays from landfill every year.

keep your clothes on....’food in the nude’ means beginning of the end for plastic in supermarkets.
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While enjoying the comfort and loving warmth of our home, we rarely think of people who are out there in the cold weather, without having a shelter or a blanket to keep them warm during the night.

Most people feel sympathy for the homeless, but it is not enough to keep them warm. Actions speak louder than words. There are over 3,000 homeless people in France, and this winter, the temperatures were shockingly low.

Therefore, a French engineer, Geoffroy de Reynal, MSc in Energy Engineering, got an innovative idea to help these people- a pop-up igloo that can be easily erected to comfortably fit a person.

He was working as a quality manager on wind construction sites, and the terrible conditions in France made him want to rescue the homeless and use his technical knowledge to tackle this social issue.

Testing was done with nine Igloos distributed in squats around Bordeaux, France, and people who have tried them did not want to leave. These shelters kept people safe from the wild nights outside and protected from theft and violence.

The igloos are made from polyethylene foam, covered with aluminum foil, and both layers protect from the freezing temperatures and keep the igloo around 15° warmer than the temperature outside.

They are private and compact, repairable, recyclable, and waterproof shelters. Moreover, they absorb body heat and solar lighting to naturally raise the temperature inside.

De Reynal used his own money to build the first igloos this winter, and afterward, he started an online crowdfunding campaign for which he received around $20,000.

He said:

“Using my resources and the money from the crowdfunding campaign, I built 20 igloos prototypes this winter and distributed 10 in Bordeaux, and 10 additional in Paris.

I was living abroad in Montenegro for a year, and there are not many people living outside there. When I came back to France, I was surprised by the number of homeless in the streets, so I decided to come up with an idea to help them.

I am not trying to replace emergency accommodations. I am just trying to make life a bit less difficult for homeless people. Having one of these igloos does not mean that you are not homeless anymore.”

Their inventor plants to make them larger and place showers inside as well, and he intends to create thousands of igloos by 2020. Once more, Geoffroy de Reynal showed that change starts with us as individuals, and we can all try a bit more and achieve much higher goals.

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Fortnite is a game created by Tim Sweeney, and has become one of the biggest games of this decade. Its creator has been working for decades and managed to develop various interactive and intricate realms in the digital world for players.

In the 1990’s, he founded Epic Games, a video and 3-D software company, that produced various popular games, including Gears of War, Unreal Tournament, and Fortnite. Tim soon became a billionaire, but this made him a bigger philanthropist, who tried his best to protect the beautiful western Carolina mountains.

In the last decade, he spent millions of dollars to support conservation projects in North Carolina, in order to save its forest. He bought 40,000 acres of land, and donated money to various conservation parcel projects, like an expansion of 1,500 acres to Mount Mitchell State Park.

In November 2016, he donated $15 million for a conservation project in order to protect 7,000 acres of the Box Creek Wilderness. This forest is located in the historic foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Being untouched, a large corporation wanted to carve up the land and use it to run power lines to other places. Additionally, Sweeney protected hundreds of endangered animal and plant species in the area by protecting it.

According to the biologist Kevin Caldwell:

“Ecologists documented more than 130 rare and watch-list plant and wildlife species, and several new-to‐science wildlife and plant species, including three moths and a new spiderwort species.”



Sweeney added:

“It’s one of the most diverse areas in North Carolina. It has such rare plant and wildlife species, it seemed a perfect fit with the Fish and Wildlife Service. This is a first step – there will be other places protected. The goal is to connect South Mountains State Park to Chimney Rock. This is one piece of the puzzle.”

Moreover, a year later, the man bought 193 acres in Alamance County for $1.973 million, and after securing the land, Jose Kellher, who is a representative of Sweeney, guaranteed that the land would not be developed. Last year, he bought a 1,500 acre place called Stone Hills, and protected it from being turned into a golf resort community.

Sweeney maintains:

“I bought this land because it has a nice longleaf pine forest and was available for a reasonable price. I’ll be holding it until I find a permanent nature conservation home for it, which will take years or decades.”

When he was asked about his short term plans for the land, he replied:

“I just plan to hike it and do some tree thinning and burning for ecosystem restoration until I find a permanent conservancy or state home for it.”

The Mind Unleashed wrote:

“Sweeney’s conservation efforts come at a time when protecting our nation’s forests has become increasingly important. A study led by North Carolina State University professor Nick Haddad and conducted by 24 scientists, found that there are only 2 truly intact forests left on Earth.

When the study’s authors examined the effects of human involvement on forests, they found habitat fragmentation leads to 13 to 75 percent decrease in plant and animal diversity, reduces the ability of animals and plants to survive and can even distort the food chain, as smaller patches of forest tend to have an increase in predator population.

Thankfully, as science continues to learn more about the importance of undeveloped forest land, billionaire philanthropists are noticing and taking action. China’s wealthiest man has also taken note of the importance of conservation. In 2015, Jack Ma, the billionaire behind online retail giant Alibaba, purchased 28,000 acres of land in the Adirondack mountains of upstate NY. His first action taken after purchasing the land was to halt logging operations.”

Let’s hope that actions of this kind will inspire other people who have the needed wealth, power, and influence, to do good, save the environment, and help the community.

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