SAN JOSE, Calif.--MicroPlace, a social business owned by eBay Inc., and green living expert Sara Snow are cooking up something good for the world this holiday season. Snow, whose online recipe box includes butternut squash lasagna and lentil soup, has created a more fanciful dish whose chief ingredients include a big heart, a touch of compassion, and the willingness to invest $20 or more in a project that can make a difference. Her “Cook Up Some Change!” recipe can be found on MicroPlace’s website.
“We usually think of green living in terms of home, food and family, but our community really extends around the world,” Snow said. “Even a small investment in a poor, hard-working entrepreneur can make a big difference. And your investment on MicroPlace is recyclable: it can be reinvested again and again to make a difference in the lives of hard working poor people around the world.”
Sara and her family have been active in microfinance for years. “A few years ago my family funded the construction and beginning loans for a microfinance bank in Malawi, Africa,” she says. “Since then I have been committed to helping the world's working poor through microloans. I partnered with MicroPlace to be able to take that commitment to the next level and I'm so thrilled to be a part of their important work.”
MicroPlace enables ordinary people to invest in the world’s working poor. On MicroPlace.com, investors choose where they want to invest, how much impact they want to have, how long their money is used, and their expected rate of return. Since inception, MicroPlace investors have made more than 44,000 loans to more than 222,000 entrepreneurs around the world.
“Sara is a great ambassador for MicroPlace,” said Ashwini Narayanan, MicroPlace general manager. “During the holidays, giving to others is a long-standing tradition. Sara is helping us show that investing in others can be just as meaningful.”
About Sara Snow
As the host of the popular Discovery Network shows Living Fresh and Get Fresh with Sara Snow, author of SARA SNOW’S FRESH LIVING: The Essential Room-by-Room Guide to a Greener, Healthier Family and Home and the daughter of green movement pioneer and Eden Foods co-founder Tim Redmond, Sara Snow grew up green well before it was fashionable or popular. Sara Snow is a lifelong advocate of organic living and travels the country as a green lifestyle expert speaking about the simple steps people can take to be healthier individuals and create a healthier planet. In addition to her Discovery Network shows, she is a columnist for treehugger.com, and is advising the network on their newest cable network, PlanetGreen. She also blogs for FitnessMagazine.com, and is in development on her next TV projects. Sara and her husband live in Indianapolis.
About MicroPlace
MicroPlace (www.microplace.com ), a PayPal company launched in 2007, is a social business that enables everyday people to invest in the world’s working poor. The organization, whose mission is to alleviate global poverty, facilitates online investments in microfinance that have proven to be an effective way of transforming people on the margins of society into economically productive individuals. MicroPlace is championing a model that fuses people’s desire to be philanthropic with the efficacy of investing to raise microfinance capital. MicroPlace is a wholly-owned subsidiary of eBay, Inc. (NASDAQ:EBAY).