For the past few years, my niece Olivia and I have made a contribution to The Heifer Project each Christmas. If you are not familiar with Heifer, their mission is "To work with communities to end hunger and poverty and to care for the earth." There approach is simple yet unique. Through donations, they are able to provide a community with a source of income through the gift of an animal such as a goat, pig, chickens and of course a heifer. The livestock brings with it the benefits of milk, wool, draft power, eggs and offspring Here's the really cool part, every family and community that receives assistance promises to repay their living loan by donating one or more of their animal's offspring to another family in need. This practice of passing on a gift ensures project sustainability, develops community and enhances self-esteem by allowing project partners to become donors.
Here is an awesome story about someone who has benefitted by The Heifer Project.
It was actually Olivia that started the tradition. One year she saved her birthday money and bought a flock of chickens. She was probably seven at the time. I was so inspired by her, I decided to join her in the effort. Since then we have done two goats, chickens, geese, ducks. Over the years, she has given much of her birthday Christmas, and allowance money for this cause. This year we decided in January to both save our spare change all year and go for something bigger like the water buffalo. We were doing pretty good and had over $100 in Sept. Then came hurricane Katrina and we decided to give what we had so far to help the Katrina effort.
We continued to save our pennies and were able to contribute chickens and bees this year. I had no idea bees could be so helpful.
1 comment:
That is so cool- and unique too! Good for you!
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