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Hospitality is in my DNA. From business practice to event design, facilitation, teaching and the stages I speak on, it is essential to take care of each other. In this way, we may hold space for the principles of radical inclusion and everyday advocacy at the core of my mission.
Balancing business and purpose in my cooking, systems design, teaching and love or community, I believe that feeding people and re-thinking the ways we get it done will change the world in a way that is essential to our future.
I care deeply about humans.
As the individual and as the collective, if we are unhealthy, our community is unhealthy. If our community is unhealthy, our environment is unhealthy. And if our environment is unhealthy? Our planet is unhealthy and so is our future.
CLICK A COUNTRY
When you support ABLF, your donation dollars directly impact food security for our most marginalized communities.
It all starts with food. Food is our last best hope to stay connected as a global community. Food is a conduit to the love we need to rethink our systems, drive change, and engage those who need us most.
This ideology is the focus of my teaching and is fundamental in providing reliable, dignified access to food security with A Better Life Foundation Canada
and A Better Life Foundation USA.
Tokens REDEeMED SINCE 2012
MeALS SERVED every single day
Launched in 2012, the Token Program is a benchmark of everyday advocacy with A Better Life Foundation. As a closed currency, tokens are purchased and either directly distributed to recipients or donated to a local community outreach organization including Atira & the Vancouver Police Department to distribute to recipients on behalf of the the individual or group who purchased them. The token itself is redeemable for a sandwich or bowl of soup on-site at A Better Life Foundation's headquarters in the heart of Vancouver, British Columbia's Downtown Eastside - a community known for it's large population of folks enduring symptoms of poverty and homelessness.
7 days a week, 365 days a year (yes, including Christmas, especially on Christmas) our kitchen team produces over 1,700 meals that are distributed via a 0 emissions bicycle courier to Vancouver, British Columbia's most vulnerable populations throughout the Downtown Eastside. Daily meals help ensure the stability and safety of our neighbours who need it most. By providing a reliable source for folks facing dire challenges including poverty, mental illness and substance addiction, these meals provide structure and a point of contact with those who care, organically providing check-in points and moments of connection. By providing daily meals, we seek to enable upward mobility through food security.
HOLDING SPACE & SHARING THE WORK
As human beings, we are hard-wired to care about each other. I believe this with my whole being and it's been my life's work to bring this message around the world in teachings, facilitations, business practice and making food from the heart.
I've been around the world many times over and if there's any takeaway it's this: people still make the place. Click through each one of my engagements below to read about them and the necessary, urgent and immediate action we must take together.
And keep an eye out for the food. Always, the food.
United Nations, New York
Dinner for 100 in New York, New York
Keynote Speaker
Dinner for 400 in Rome, Italy
Entrepreneur In Residence
Future of Food Keynote Speaker
Climate Action Chef at Iceland Summit
Poverty & Food Address
Speaker
Social and environmental consciousness in business is the only way to make it to our future. Integrating sustainable mandates into all business models is a new face of leadership I'm die-hard in my dedication to. Focussing on food - our last best hope to stay connected - I have over 11 businesses under my belt including a certified B Corp.
SociAL IMPACT &
CURRENT PROJECTS
Offering an engaging, bold, brutally honest portrayal of hunger, homelessness and addiction today in our communities, I bring my message around the world to break biases, create everyday advocates and build communities around issues we need to solve, now.
Changing the landscape and supporting others in ways they can look at sustainable business models is at the forefront of my keynotes, teaching, design thinking and facilitation.
As a certified Ten Directions Integral Facilitator, I use actionable dialogue to help unstick groups facing deep challenges.
From private workshops to panels and interviewing on stage, I use emergent practices in design thinking and systems innovation deep commitment to holding safe space for thought-provoking conversations.
My time at the Stanford School of design "d.school" and as an adjunct Professor at the University of Southern Carolina reinforced that process is king. In this Design Thinking package available for download, I give the rundown on what I carry in my back pocket - always!
AT OUR CORE, A BETTER LIFE FOUNDATION IS A CONDUIT TO COMMUNITY.
SOCIAL ENTREPRENEUR
MARK BRAND, ONCE HOMELESS,
NOW HELPS FEED THE HUNGRY
August 24, 2018
ACTIVATING THE ACTIVIST IN ALL OF US
PODCAST - MARK BRAND IS @CREATETHELOVE MARK GROVES GUEST
THE JAY PARRY PODCAST - NAVIGATING YOUR MENTAL
HEALTH DURING A PANDEMIC
LOVE HARD: MARK BRAND | GOOD PEOPLE INTERVIEWS WITH THINKERS, ARTISTS, ACTIVISTS & LUMINARIES AROUND THE WORLD
August 24, 2018
A BETTER LIFE FOUNDATION EXPANDS IT'S FOOD ACCESS WORK TO NEW YORK
December 20, 2019
NO US & THEM, ONLY US!MARK BRAND IS MARC BUCKLEY'S
GUEST ON INSIDE IDEAS
FROM PAIN TO POWER | IMPACT EVERYWHERE FT. MARK BRAND
CHEF USES FOOD TO
BUILD COMMUNITIES
September 28, 2019
THERE IS STRENGTH
IN PARTNERSHIP
We are better together. With these friends and family we are able to continue the work of mobilizing spaces of everyday advocacy, radical inclusion and support upward mobility through food security. Click through each logo to learn more about the ways we are making a difference together.
CLICK THROUGH TO LEARN MORE ABOUT EACH PARTNERSHIP
