Get One, Give One: Help Us Do Some Good!

When you buy a delicious, nutrient-packed Ice Age Meal, you know you’re doing something amazing for your body. In fact, you’re adding another day to your life!

But did you know that you’re also doing something amazing for the world, too?

I talk a lot about empowering you with the tools you need to make your own nutritious meals at home and make it part of your life. And since 2017, our whole team at Ice Age Meals has been putting our money where our mouth is through the Get One, Give One, or GOGO program.

Through GOGO, we’re investing in charities that work not only to feed healthy meals to those less fortunate, but to “teach them how to fish” by providing education about nutrition and preparing those healthy meals for themselves so that they can live longer, better lives.

The idea is simple: You purchase Ice Age Meals and do something good for your own body, and we give—through meals, education, volunteer time, or monetary donations—to organizations we believe further our philosophy of healthy, empowered living.

In the year and a half our GOGO program has been in place, we’ve helped the following organizations:

• Here in Reno, we’ve partnered with the Eddy House, a downtown, walk-in center where homeless, runaway, foster, or other at-risk youth ages 12-24 can turn for care and comfort. Nevada has one of the highest rates of youth homelessness in the country. At the Eddy House, these kids can find anything from a Wi-Fi connection to clothing, showers, computer access, a warm bed, or access to important services and counseling. In this place where many kids haven’t had access to healthy food, where many subsist on processed food like Twinkies, we stock the freezer full of Ice Age Meals so they have one place they can count on providing them with fresh, hot, quality food. And as the Eddy House grows, moving locations and adding education and a commercial kitchen to its offerings, we’ll be able to step up our commitment. My staff and I will get more involved with training kids to prepare the food themselves and help them understand how to make wise choices about food and fitness for themselves. 
• At the World Road Orphanage in Imphal, Manipur, India, we’ve helped to give these disadvantaged kids a better chance at life. While attending the wedding of a friend in that country, he—a missionary—introduced me to the children at this orphanage he’d been helping to run. I was blown away by the scope of their needs. So in November 2017, Ice Age Meals began investing in them. We helped the kids purchase piglets, which became the seeds of a startup business. They worked to care for and raise the pigs, then they would sell the adult pigs at a profit. This enabled them to purchase not only more piglets but also up to 10 chickens. The chickens became food for the orphanage, and the piglets became the business—a highly sustainable business model. The orphanage recently was given a couple acres of land on which to farm rice and vegetables, but since the area is not protected, they lose a lot of what they raise to thieves. Now, IAM is committing to helping the orphanage build a wall to keep out thieves and protect their farm. It goes far beyond the buy-one-give-one model. More than just sending meals to hungry kids, we’re working to empower them to grow and make those meals themselves. 
• Last fall, we told you about our commitment to the kids of the Keala Foundation in Kaua’i, in which we stock three gyms on the island with free Ice Age Meals for all the kids and staff, and we’ve even offered matching financial support, where a discount with purchase resulted in a portion of proceeds going directly to Keala. This organization, whose name means “The Way,” works to support at-risk youth in Kaua’i by helping to fight substance abuse and addiction through health and wellness programs. Their close relationship with CrossFit brought us together with this remarkable organization, and our commitment has deepened even further. At the foundation’s first leadership camp in 2018, high school juniors and seniors got the chance to learn skills to be empowered, accountable, responsible, and self-sufficient. In between WODs and team-building activities, I joined them to present cooking demonstrations and share information about healthy cooking.

Last month, we made the important decision that we’d focus more of our sponsorship efforts on the GOGO program, investing in the world around us with more efforts like these. We want to spread the Paleo Nick message about eating healthy and living a longer life to every corner of the world. Where else can our GOGO program be effective? We hope you’ll let us know.

So when you pick up an Ice Age Meal you’ll know you’re doing something good for yourself, and for the world, too. IAM – Because what you eat is what you ARE!