$100,000 raised for local food bank to date
NEW ORLEANS – According to Second Harvest Food Bank of Greater New Orleans and Acadiana, each dollar donated provides roughly four meals to people otherwise unable to secure adequate food for themselves or their families. With an out-of-the-box idea, the father/daughter team of Ryan and Anna Meyers has now helped the organization to provide a year’s worth of daily meals for over 1,000 of their neighbors.
After reading about the latest “fork” –significant codebase change– in the Ethereum blockchain, Ryan Meyers casually asked his 17-year-old daughter, Anna, “do you think that you could draw a fork?” A few hours and a dozen sketches later, the beginnings of the first generative NFT project with proceeds going entirely to charity was born. Now, three weeks after the launch of their project, Non-Fungible Forks have generated the equivalent of over $100,000 for Second Harvest of Greater New Orleans. Second Harvest President and CEO Natalie Jayroe says the gift is by far the largest of its kind for any type of cryptocurrency. “We are so honored by this donation. Accepting support by way of cryptocurrency is very new to us, and this gift from Ryan and Anna shows yet another way important partners like them can be a major part of our mission.”
Thanks to the massive popularity of projects including NBA TopShot, Top Dog Beach Club, Lucky Maneki, and Bored Ape Yacht Club, as well as public adoption by celebrities such as Snoop Dogg, Reese Witherspoon, and Shaquille O’Neal, “NFT” has recently become a pop culture buzzword. Even so, blockchain technology– currently used most typically for decentralized finance or cryptocurrency– still leaves many would-be collectors scratching their heads. With just under 200,000 unique users trading digital collectibles weekly on popular NFT marketplace OpenSea, according to DappRadar, most members of the “NFT Community” who buy and sell art and other wares on the blockchain consider themselves early adopters. Still, a $769 billion market cap of the NFT sector according to CoinMarketCap continues to attract new people to the hobby.
While NFTs provide artists a unique opportunity to showcase and monetize their creativity to a worldwide audience, another significant advantage to “cryptoart” is in the ability to receive royalties on not just the first sale, but royalties attached to each sale afterwards on secondary markets. This ability to generate consistent revenue is what first catalyzed Meyers’ idea of creating a unique revenue stream for helping charities provide essential services to people in need. The “Non-Fungible Forks,” each of 5,555 uniquely generated with various traits like color, material, tablecloth, and “fanciness,” can be “minted” randomly from the project’s website [forkhunger.art]. In addition to these images generated procedurally from Anna’s art, artists from around the world have also contributed “1 of 1” editions in their own styles, which are highly sought after by collectors.
“Holding” a non-fungible fork (that is, keeping it in a wallet instead of listing it for sale on marketplaces) comes with benefits ranging from raffles for other art and NFTs, access to play-to-earn games from various projects around the NFT Community, community gatherings and classes, and physical items delivered “in real life.” Beyond those benefits, the ability to redirect some of the significant gains made from trading in crypto toward real need in the world is one that has been slow to present itself.
While Anna focuses on finishing her senior year of high school, Ryan has devoted countless hours to building an online community around and increased awareness of their unique project. Minting is still active with a pay-what-you-want model on the project website [forkhunger.art] and the entirety of royalties on secondary sales (10%) on OpenSea is also transferred directly to Second Harvest of Greater New Orleans. More information can be found on the website or Twitter profile [@ForkHungerNFT].
For additional information, contact:
Non-Fungible Forks
Ryan Meyers
601.434-6766
ryan@forkhunger.art
Second Harvest Food Bank of Greater New Orleans and Acadiana
Jay Vise, Director of Marketing and Communications
504-330-4060
jvise@secondharvest.org
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