Looking for a Meaningful Gift, a New Family Tradition, and a Way to Make a Difference?

(ARA) - Somewhere in a forgotten corner of the United States or 50 other countries around the world, a family struggling with hunger and poverty could help sustain itself if it had some livestock.

You can fund all or part of the cost through Heifer International, which for 60 years has provided farm animals and training in sustainable agriculture to poor families with marginal resources.

For example, a goat costs $120 (or a share for $10), which can supply a family with several quarts of milk each day. Extra milk can be sold or made into cheese, butter or yogurt. A llama is $150, and a water buffalo is $250. Heifers are $500 ($50 a share), chicks, ducks and geese are $20, and a hive of honeybees is $30 -- to mention a few.

Here’s how it works:

1. You decide to skip shopping the mall for meaningless gifts and instead donate a sheep, or cow, or any other farm animal in honor of your mother, father, teacher, client, or anyone close to your heart. (Go on, start a new tradition!)

2. Your honorees receive a unique gift card, describing the generous contribution you’ve made in their name. (Their reaction will make you glad you did.)

3. Thanks to your gift, one more family is on the road to self-reliance. Once the family has completed training and prepared appropriate facilities, they will receive the animal that you have helped provide.

4. This animal will provide wool or milk or transportation or eggs -- and a promise of new hope and peace for this family. Surplus products are sold to give them extra income for school supplies, medicine and housing improvements.

5. Every recipient family promises to “pass on the gift” of its animal’s first female offspring to another family in need. Then the next family to receive an animal and training makes the same promise, and so on until an entire community is lifted out of poverty and into self-reliance. Your original gift ripples out for years to come. Even a small donation can make a tremendous difference to those in need.

Heifer International provides the answer for donors who are looking for more accountability for what their charitable dollars are doing and who desire more specific, sustainable remedies to poverty and care for the earth.

For More Information:

You can set a chain of events like this into motion by calling (800) 696-1918 to receive a free gift catalog, or by visiting www.heifer.org.

EDITOR’S NOTE: For more information, contact Jean Carpenter or Christine Volkmer, Carpenters & Associates, at (214) 520-3666 or carpenters@carpenterspr.com; or Ray White or Jennifer Pierce, Heifer International, (800) 422-1311.

Article courtesy of ARA Content