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As a community organizer in New York City, Sharifa Khan spends a lot of time visiting food distribution hubs, community gardens, and local shelters. While speaking with community members, she often encounters the same issue: people want to get involved in volunteering, but theyre not sure where to start. So, Khan decided to make a tool to address thatand it couldnt have come at a more important moment. Dora.nyc, short for Directory of Resources & Aid, is a new website dedicated to compiling New York Citys mutual aid offerings into one easy-to-understand resource. Its designed both for those seeking aidlike food, housing, and immigration servicesas well as those looking for places to offer help. The website was created through a collaboration between Khan, who runs an organization called Hope Altars; Cornell PhD student Johan Michalove, who builds digital mutual aid tools through a project called Mutua; and the NYC Resource Library, which compiles lists of local mutual aid resources. [Screenshot: dora.nyc] The website comes as the government shutdown has led to a pause in the SNAP food aid program, which provides food stamps to about one in eight Americans. This month, millions of low-income Americans have been left without the full benefits that usually help them afford basic necessities. Now that the shutdown has ended, SNAP funding is set to resume, although it’s still unclear how quickly recipients will receive their benefits. Dora.nyc offers New Yorkers a clearer picture of where aid is availableand, Khan and Michalove say, its a concept that they think other urban areas could replicate. Asiyah, Community Activist [Photo: Bryce Lacy] How to use dora.nyc The dora.nyc pages UI, designed by Michalove, is organized under two main categories: space and time. On the top of the site is a map of NYCs five boroughs with markers for resources across the city. Resources, in this case, are defined as any kind of aid with a permanent presence in the area. These markers are color-coded by category, like distribution hub, shelter, housing, elder care, community fridge, and more. Users can navigate the map by region and click on any of the markers to learn more about the associated resource. The bottom half of the map is a calendar, organized Monday through Friday, that lists food distribution events by place and time. This part of the website includes recurring food distribution events, but can also feature one-off pop-ups or services that take place on an irregular schedule. [Screenshot: dora.nyc] Like the map, the calendar section is color-coded by region, and users can filter it by their local borough. Michalove also added an AI-powered search feature that lets users enter queries in plain language, like, Where is there food near me or Where can I find a shelter in Brooklyn, to easily find resources that match their needs. Anyone who would like to add a new resource or food distribution time to the website can do so via a set of forms in the top right of the site, which are individually vetted by Khan. When you’re already stressed about needing access to food, and theres the added stress of figuring out where to go, this can alleviate that one factor, Khan says. That is actually something someone mentioned to me directly. They said, When I was struggling to find distro sites, I wish this tool existed. Dora.nycs premise may seem simple, but the websites genius is its ability to condense information thats historically been shared more disparately. [Photo: Bryce Lacy] Why dora.nyc’s premise makes so much sense Khan and Michalove have been working on dora.nyc since the summer, but sped up their development process when they heard the news of the SNAP shutdown. The idea initially came when Khan realized that information about food distribution and other mutual aid events was primarily being shared through social media posts or WhatsApp group chatsspaces that some community members, especially older folks, might not have access to. I think a lot of times, we assume that everyone has the autonomy to put those pieces together, Khan says. That really does neglect a ton of factors that people are facing on a personal basis, like socioeconomic factors that are impacting their capability to go out there and find places to volunteer, for example. Khan and Michalove pooled both her experience in community organizing and an existing list of resources from NYC Resource Library to build dora.nycs foundational database. Eventually, Khan says, she hopes to use dora.nyc to help different shelters across the city share resources among themselveslike, for example, if one food distribution site ends up with extra food items, those might more easily be sent to another site in need. [Photo: Bryce Lacy] So far, Khan has already heard from one site that a visitor found them through the dora.nyc map. Shes also helped several older community members, who may not have access to social media sites like Instagram, to add dora.nyc to their bookmarked websites. Ive shown aunties, specifically my Caribbean aunties, how to use it, and you can see the delight on their faces, Khan says. Michalove and Khan agree that the model could be replicated in other cities, if local community organizers can establish an adequate vetting process for proposed sites. When you make the goodwill visible, it gives people a direction toward how they can organize and help, because they see, Oh, there are so many community fridges, maybe I could add one to my neighborhood or do a distro where I’m located. It gives people more of a focus toward how they can contribute.
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E-Commerce
Theres a new sheriff in Bentonville. Today, Walmart announced that John Furner will become the companys new CEO and president, effective February 1 next year, succeeding longtime boss Doug McMillon, who is retiring. McMillon has been at the helm of the retail giant since 2014. Prior to becoming CEO, he led Walmarts international division for four years, after leading Sams Club, a Walmart subsidiary, between 2005 and 2009. Serving as Walmarts CEO has been a great honor and Im thankful to our Board and the Walton family for the opportunity, McMillon said in a statement Friday. Why is McMillon retiring? This is the right time to retire because the companys in such great shape, and John is more than ready to lead this company through another set of transformations, McMillon said in a separate video message, filmed alongside Furner. Walmarts team also tells Fast Company that previous CEO transitions have followed a similar pattern. Specifically, they were announced in November and followed a sequence: a successor was named, the transitions started at the end of the year, and the outgoing CEO remained on the board for a period of time in an advisory capacity. McMillon said he believes the company will be in good hands when Furner takes the reins. Ive worked with John for more than 20 years. His love for our associates and this company runs deep, McMillon said. Hes uniquely capable of leading the company through this next AI-driven transformation. Hes a merchant, an operator, an innovator, and a builder. I know that our future is bright with his leadership. A tenure marked by growth and technological change Walmart has made notable strides under McMillons tenure, including investments in the companys workforce by increasing wages and expanding employee programs, and more recently, embracing AI by partnering with OpenAI to allow new ways for customers to shop and interact with the brand. It also went under a small but ambitious rebrand this year, the first in decades. Furner is currently the president and CEO of Walmart U.S., a role hes held since 2019, and is responsible for 1.5 million employees and roughly 4,600 stores. He started at Walmart as an hourly associate in 1993, working his way up the corporate ladder. As we enter a new retail era fueled by innovation and AI, our purpose and our people will continue to guide us, Furner said in a statement. Walmarts stock fell around 3% during premarket trading on Friday after the news was released. Year-to-date, shares are up around 14%, and they’re up 104% over the past five years. Walmart will is expected to release its latest earnings numbers on November 20.
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E-Commerce
Baseball and bets go hand-in-hand in the Dominican Republic, where professional athletes, musicians and even legislators go public with their wagers.But for every legal bet in the Caribbean country, officials say there are countless more illegal ones.It’s a widespread, multimillion-dollar industry that has come under scrutiny following U.S. federal indictments of Cleveland Guardians pitchers Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz. They are accused of taking bribes from unnamed sports bettors in the Dominican Republic to throw certain pitches and help those bettors win at least $460,000, according to an indictment unsealed Sunday in New York. Ortiz and Clase have both pleaded not guilty.The accusations have dismayed and embarrassed many in the players’ native country.“The case of Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz tarnishes the image of Dominican baseball players,” said José de los Santos, a fan of Dominican and Major League Baseball. “Actions of that nature put Dominican and Latino players in the spotlight.” The DR has 3,500 registered betting shops, and those are just the legal ones Sports betting shops are widespread in the Dominican Republic, a country of more than 11 million people where baseball is king.According to data from the Dominican Association of Sports Betting Shops, there are about 3,500 registered businesses, and countless more illegal ones.Quico Tabar, head of the country’s national lottery who was tasked by the president to regulate gambling, recently stated in a public letter that officials have been working for years to regulate betting shops but that “circumstances beyond our control” have not allowed that to happen. He did not elaborate.For Raymond Jiménez, a self-described frequent sports gambler, it’s all the same.He said he chooses the biggest and closest businesses that allow big wagers, regardless of whether they’re legal or not.“I don’t know of any illegal betting shops,” he said.Jiménez said most bets in the Dominican Republic focus on sports including MLB, NBA and NFL games.“I’ve been gambling since 1998, when I was underage,” Jiménez said. “I used to jump the school fence to go into a betting shop at 14 years old. I’ve heard everything, from athletes who sell themselves to gamblers to others who bet against them.” Gambling persists amid corruption Legislators in the Dominican Republic are debating a bill that would create a new entity to regulate and oversee gambling and establish penalties for non-compliance.Meanwhile, chatter about the Clase and Ortiz cases continues to dominate the news and social media, as does the case of Oscar Chalas, the Dominican Republic’s former director of casinos and gambling. He reached a plea deal with prosecutors in late October and admitted responsibility in collecting money from illegal betting shops to allow them to keep operating.Chalas told a judge that each illegal shop paid up to $100 a month, but that he didn’t remember the total amount collected because there were “so many” of them. He also claimed that a former treasury minister knew and approved of the scheme, according to local media reports.The pace of legal and illegal gambling is only expected to surge as local teams and fans prepare for the Dominican Republic’s Professional Baseball League final early next year.One of the country’s most famous public bets involving the local league took place earlier this year. Hall of Famer and former Red Sox star David Ortiz offered fans a 1 million peso ($16,000) wager on social media in favor of the team that went on to win the championship he ended up with 15 million pesos ($240,000) on the line. That included a 2 million peso ($32,000) bet with Dominican urban singer Bulin 47, but Ortiz forgave him after winning: “You’re good to those who are poor,” he wrote. AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/MLB Martín Adames, Associated Press
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E-Commerce
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