HALF UNITED: We want to fight global hunger with you! -- Indiegogo

Who we are, Where we feed, and How it all began:
In the summer of 2009, 25 year old HALF UNITED founder Carmin Black was bored with her job as a tv news-lady, so she packed up and moved to L.A. to work for TOMS where she traveled the country speaking to young kids about the One for One movement. Inspired by the sheer-genius, and total simplicity of this business model (every time you buy one product, one thing is given to a child in need) she decided to move home to N.C. and plant her roots by starting her own business gives back. Knowing she would need some help getting a One for One company off the ground she called on her younger brother Christian to join forces with her as the creative director and men's-line designer. From the beginning Carmin and Christian knew that they wanted to feed children in need with every purchase made, but wanting to achieve that goal and actually finding a way to do it were two different things. Once they started to look at how many people hunger affects globally they knew they had a much bigger problem on their hand than they had anticipated. Carmin and Christian discovered stats like: "925 million people worldwide suffer from hunger, that's more than the populations of the U.S., Canada and the European Union combined," and, "Preschool and school-age children who experience severe hunger have higher levels of chronic illness, anxiety and depression, and behavior problems than children with no hunger."

These types of stats prompted Carmin and Christian to rise to action. They called, met with, researched, studied, and eventually found organizations both domestically and abroad that fed kids in need, used education to empower the children, and made serious investments into their lives. Today, HALF UNITED has given away more than 35,000 meals to kids in Wilmington, NC, Fiji, Haiti, Cambodia and Liberia.

From the beginning HALF UNITED was created to be a company that would always place giving back above their bottom line. Every time a HALF UNITED supporter makes a purchase they are personally feeding a child in need! Carmin and Christian are proud of the win-win relationship that their merchandise affords both the giver and the receiver, and as crazy as it sounds these two siblings believe they can and will end the global hunger crisis one swanky t-shirt sale at a time!

What we do:
We UNITE with you to fight the global hunger epidemic. In the USA your purchases support outreach projects, low-income neighborhoods by providing food education and assistance, bag buddy programs, and most recently your purchases allow HALF UNITED to plant school gardens as a means of teaching young children about the importance of healthy eating and obesity prevention. Abroad we send the money raised through your purchases to organizations in Liberia, Fiji, and in Cambodia. Oftentimes in developing nations school food assistance programs do not exist as they do in the USA, and if a lunch meal is given, it is often times the only meal a child may receive in a day. We only work with organizations that are committed to spending time with the children we feed by loving them, educating them, often housing and clothing them too.

Why we need YOUR support:

For the past two years Carmin, Chrstian, their trusty interns and their awesome volunteers have gone UN-PAID. We work side jobs and part time jobs, we sing and play music, paint, and do anything else we can to support ourselves while we keep HALF UNITED going.

HALF UNITED honestly needs much more than $20,000 to continue the work we do with the children YOU feed. However we felt this number would give us an awesome start and would create a solid foundation on which we can continue to build our business. We need money to feed children, to travel to get the word out by presenting in college classrooms, high school classrooms, at festivals, conferences, and anywhere anyone will listen to us. We need money to print fliers, pay for an office telephone so we can make stronger business connections and call our partners. We need money to attend trade shows and trunk shows so that we can display our merchandise, place orders, and shout to the rooftops about how ridiculous the global hunger epidemic is. We need money for t-shirt printing, for shipping, and labeling. Your dollars will allow us to expand our giving programs and better establishing the ones we currently support, and begin to foster new feeding partnerships.

In return you get the peace of knowing you've helped a great cause. HALF UNITED is transparent. We invite you to meet with us, volunteer with us, travel overseas with us, work with us, donate your time and talents and help us end the global hunger epidemic! You also get some ultra-swanky prizes every time you make a donation...these prizes are sweet and have YOUR name written all over them!

You can do your HALF EVERY DAY!

At HALF UNITED we are eternal optomists. We believe that if you can dream it you can achieve it. We shout this loudly, sing about this at the top of our voices, and get down like James Brown all in the name of fighting global hunger. We celebrate every time one of our products is purchased because that is a day when one less child will have to go without being fed! You can buy a product or you could...

volunteer at a soup kitchen
start your own business that gives back
donate to a local charity of your choice
come volunteer with us to plant a garden on an elementary school campus
feed a homeless man, woman, or child
smile at someone
open a door
lend a hand
We believe doing your HALF can come in any form that positively impacts the life of another...go out there and be the change you wish to see in the world! Make us proud!!!
for more info on where how and who we feed head to WWW.HALFUNITED.COM

Team on This Campaign:

0.0478 Complete

$956

Raised of $20,000 Goal

0 time left

Flexible Funding campaign

This campaign received all of the funds contributed on Tue Jan 31.

Perks

for your contribution

$10 Give us an air five!

You just gave $10 bucks and we could not be more grateful for it! Thanks so much! We'd like to give you an air five, an official "Fighting Hunger" sticker, and donate one meal to a child in need in YOUR honor!
$25 Now we're talking!

$25 smackers! We really, really appreciate you giving us your hard-earned cash! We'd like to thank you by sending you an official HALF UNITED tee, an awesome sticker for you to display anywhere you choose, and we'd like to also donate two meals to a child in need in YOUR honor!
$50 wow-wee! Thanks for that!

Man, you really are a genuine hunger-fighter! We feel ya! We'd like to say thank you by offering you an amazing HALF UNITED tee, a packet of HALF UNITED seeds to plant a garden of your own, a fabulous sticker, and we'll donate four meals to a child in need in YOUR honor!
$100 Can we hug you?

$100 dollars! That.Is.Awesome! Thank you so much for your support! Please accept this HALF UNITED tee, Fighting Hunger necklace, Cambodian bracelet, and this swanky sticker as our way of saying thank you! Wait a dern sec, we're also going to up the ante and give 10 meals to a child in need in your honor, AND we'll let you choose which of our feeding partners you'd like to support. We have feeding projects in Fiji, Liberia, and here in the good ole' USA.
$250 We love you for life!

Dang. Thank you! We'd like you to please accept a HALF UNITED tee, two of our fighting hunger necklaces, 2 Cambodian bracelets, 2 awesome stickers, a signed copy of our film "Hand Crafted for Hunger-Fighting." We are also honored to give a child in need 15 meals in your honor!
$500 You are our hero!

Dang! That's what we call hunger-fighting! Get down with your bad self! In addition to all of the rad prizes listed in the $250.00 category, we would like to give 20 meals to a child in need in YOUR honor, write a blog post all about YOU, and make a music video where we serenade you and sing your praises! Here's the thing, you've just helped us more than you know. You rock, and we're going to rock out while we thank you for what you've done!
$1,000 This is too good to be true!

WOW that's a ton of support! We thank you from the bottom of our hearts! In addition to all of the prizes above, we would like for you to design your own custom "HALF UNITED" t-shirt that will be featured in the our next season's line. Your creation will bear your name, will have a story about you attached to it, and all of the proceeds from your tee will be donated to purchase meals for children in need!
$5,000 You are like family to us!

Are we dreaming? This is AWESOME! Thank you, we love you, you rock! As a way to say a MASSIVE thank you we'd like to offer you the above perks, and we'd like to come to where you live (provided you live in the good ole' US of A) and host a "Fighting Hunger" party in your honor! We're talking a documentary screening, live music, fun give-aways, create your own "Fighting Hunger" necklace station, and a special award ceremony where we feature you and thank you for what you've done!
$10,000 We just shed a tear.

YOU ARE A GEM! WE ARE TOUCHED, AND HONORED, AND THANKFUL. THANK YOU! As a way of saying a huge, and glorious thank you, we would not only like you to have the above prizes, but we would also like you to join us on our first ever global feeding project set to take place 2012 or early 2013! We will be venturing to Fiji or Liberia to meet the children we have been feeding for the past two years, and we want you on board! We thank you, and appreciate your support. YOU ROCK!