Are the LEAST digital of all.

Today is Boxing Day, that is " as a holiday to give gifts to the poor, today Boxing Day is primarily known as a shopping holiday".

Today, that is, is the best possible day to promote food redistribution as the Birch Community Services does it: a radical approach to rescuing food, reducing food waste, and helping people manage their money.

Why radical?

Birch is radical because:

• in 2020, they redistributed 13.7 million pounds of food and household goods, but not as an emergency program
• rescued food is the base for a financial literacy program that helps families take control of their money—and gain consistent access to healthy food—over the long term
• it isn’t a charity: “Participants are essential to the functioning and financial stability of the organization”

This would already be excellent, but the best, most innovative and most radical part of Birch Community Services is something else: there is almost nothing digital in Birch.

Yes, participating families do get (besides financial literacy books for children!) “also get free access to a budgeting app”. And members will surely exchange information or set up shifts through some digital communication system.

But the Birch Community Service seems to have no “2.0” buzzword spoiling it, no apps to magically deliver give food away, no Artificial Intelligence, no “Uber-for-wasted-food”, nothing of the sort. Just real people, solving real problems by doing real work face to face.

Birch Community Services is nothing that could come out of Silicon Valley. Sometimes the REAL innovation is as little innovation as possible. Especially digital innovation.