Would You Rather Be Safe or Starving

Well intended laws aren’t always helpful

Recently, I was asked to speak at the Changemakers conference in Las Angeles. While there I met Daniele Dilberto from South Africa. After exiting from a 30 year career as a successful restaurateur, Daniele wondered how he could complete his life with greater purpose. He built on his food skills to start Ladle of Love. In 5 years, he served 35million meals to the disadvantaged near Johannesburg.

How did he accomplish this amazing feat? 35 million meals in 5 years is huge.

It was simple. He set up a distribution system and then asked the good people of Johannesburg if they would make some sandwiches. And 35 million sandwiches later, there are a lot of people who did not go hungry.

But here in North America, we have laws and regulations that say we would rather have people rummage through garbage dumps. To give a sandwich away in North America, it has to be made in a government certified and inspected facility and made by a government certified sandwich maker. Millions of good North Americans make sandwiches every day and they do not get sick. How many people would have some decent food if we let people do some good?

If we asked people to make a sandwich for someone else, I bet there would be lots of sandwich’s available, but we would rather have hungry people than let good people help each other.