Tuesday, July 05, 2005

HEIFER.ORG

This entry is dedicated to Heifer.org. The rest of the post is directly from resources provided by Heifer.org. Please take the time to read this.

Heifer's Mission to End Hunger

Heifer envisions…
A world of communities living together in peace and equitably sharing the resources of a healthy planet.

Heifer’s mission is…
To work with communities to end hunger and poverty and to care for the earth.

Heifer's strategy is…
To “pass on the gift.” As people share their animals’ offspring with others – along with their knowledge, resources, and skills – an expanding network of hope, dignity, and self-reliance is created that reaches around the globe.

Heifer’s History
This simple idea of giving families a source of food rather than short-term relief caught on and has continued for almost 60 years. Today, millions of families in 128 countries have been given the gifts of self-reliance and hope.

Our History

A Four-Footed Attack Against Hunger

A Midwestern farmer named Dan West was ladling out rations of milk to hungry children during the Spanish Civil War when it hit him.

“These children don’t need a cup, they need a cow.”

West, who was serving as a Church of the Brethren relief worker, was forced to decide who would receive the limited rations and who wouldn’t – literally, who would live and who would die. This kind of aid, he knew, would never be enough.

So West returned home to form Heifers for Relief, dedicated to ending hunger permanently by providing families with livestock and training so that they “could be spared the indignity of depending on others to feed their children.”

In 1944, the first shipment of 17 heifers left York, Pennsylvania, for Puerto Rico, going to families whose malnourished children had never even tasted milk. Learn about the cowboys who brought cows and kids together.

Why heifers? These are young cows that haven’t yet given birth – making them perfect not only for supplying a continued source of milk, but also for supplying a continued source of support. That’s because each family receiving a heifer agrees to “pass on the gift” and donate the female offspring to another family, so that the gift of food is never-ending.

This simple idea of giving families a source of food rather than short-term relief caught on and has continued for almost 60 years. As a result, millions of families in 115 countries are experiencing better health, more income and the joy of helping others.
Please check out Heifer.org.

Please pass this on...

peace

posted by jane at 10:29 PM