Bringing the FEED 100 Bag to Life
- julie droege
- 10 hours ago
- 2 min read
Some projects stay with you long after they leave the shelf.
The FEED 100 Bag was one of those.
At the time, I was working with Whole Foods Market, supporting mission-aligned brands and nonprofit initiatives. FEED had partnered with
Whole Foods to launch a bag that would fund school meals through the UN World Food Programme.
The concept was simple and powerful:
A $10 bag = 100 school meals.
Clear.
Measurable.
Personal.
The video from Rwanda showed children gathering for lunch — 1,200 students at one school alone. The bag wasn’t just a fashion item. It was environmental, philanthropic, and symbolic all at once. It stood for something.
But ideas don’t carry themselves. They need placement. They need clarity. They need alignment between story and store.
My role wasn’t to design the bag. It was to help bring it to life in the retail environment.
To translate the mission into messaging customers could understand immediately.
To make sure it didn’t just sit on a table —but carried meaning.
To bridge:
A global school feeding program
A national retail partner
And a local shopper holding the bag in their hands
In the official launch video, the team offered thanks — including:
“Especially Julie Droege-Thorpe for bringing the bag to life.”
That phrase has stayed with me.
Because bringing something to life isn’t about logistics.
It’s about translation. It’s about stewardship. It’s about making sure a story lands where it needs to land.
What I Learned
Mission-driven work requires structure. Impact alone isn’t enough.
Customers need to understand: What am I participating in? What difference does this make? Why does this matter right now?
When purpose is clear and positioned well, people step in.
When it’s vague, even beautiful work can go unnoticed.
What I Bring Forward
From this experience, I carry forward:
• A deep respect for measurable impact
• The ability to translate mission into retail language
• An understanding of how story moves through systems
• The instinct to protect alignment between purpose and placement
When I work with founders and mission-driven brands now, I ask:
What are we making visible?
Where does the story need to be strengthened?
How do we ensure the meaning doesn’t get lost in the mechanics?
Because marketing isn’t about volume.
It’s about clarity.
And clarity is what brings something to life.
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