After we finished up our Soles 4 Soles shoe round-up last week, I let the kids know that we’d be doing something “charitable” each week leading up to Christmas.
I really wanted to add another “basic needs” charity to our favorites list, but I was feeling very overwhelmed by all of the good organizations out there. However, once I came across “The Most Important Gift Catalog In The World” from Heifer International*, I knew I had found our next charitable organization.
In short, Heifer develops programs that help combat hunger and poverty across the world using a combination of donated livestock, training and “Passing on the Gift”.
I felt confident that Heifer would put our donation to good use, and I decided to show the catalog to the kids that evening. So, while we were eating, my husband and I gently explained that not everyone has enough food to eat, but we were going to help another family like ours put food on their table.
We told them that we would donate some of the animals from the catalog to a family in need, and that the animals would then make food or milk for that family. Then, when the animals we donated had babies, the family would give the babies to their friends. They thought that was “very nice”.
The kids decided that we should donate a flock of chicks to a family in need this year. But, before the deal was sealed, my son expressed his concern about their choice: “But Mom, chicks go buck, buck, buck, all the time, and what if they go bucking around when it’s bedtime?”
How thoughtful of him! Once we let him know that chicks go to sleep too, he was very pleased with their choice! My husband and I were so proud of our children that we decided to match their donation.
We appreciate the fact that a good hen can lay up to 200 eggs a year – so in theory, our joined family gift could give a family an egg for every day of the year, plus some extra to share. That’s just incredible…
Read more about Heifer International here.
[Note: “Heifer International does not track the individual animals from donation to distribution to specific families. Rather, your gift gets combined with other gifts so that Heifer can do the most good to help transform entire communities.”]
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