“Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish; and you have fed him for a lifetime.”-author unknown

 

This familiar old saying has the ring of truth, and reminds me that in modern industrial society about the only survival skill that Americans actually teach their children is “shopping.”

Now is the time of year when this skill is most needed, but if you are at all like myself, when you turned the calender from November to December last week, you were shocked to find Christmas is almost here and there's still gobs of shopping to be done. And precious few free evenings or weekends to hunt up special stuff for special people...

I don't panic, but instinctively turn to the pile of catalogs that fill the mailbox this time each year. While many of them are full of fine and expensive goodies, there is one in particular I always look for to bail me out in the “how to shop for people who already have everything they need” category.

We began “giving” Christmas gifts through Heifer Project International more than twenty years ago. Their gift catalog allows you to select something as grand as a water buffalo, or as modest as a packet of honey bees, and give that gift in the name of a friend or relative to someone in a poorer part of the world, to provide people there with a continued source of support and livelihood.

The Heifer Project idea was started by an American farmer named Dan West who was handing out rations of milk to hungry children in war ravaged western Europe when the idea hit him:

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

The Pennsylvania farmer was serving as a Church of the Brethern relief worker, and he was forced to decide who would receive the limited rations and who wouldn't-literally, who would live and who would die. He knew that this kind of aid would never be enough.

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

In 1944, the first shipment of 17 heifers left York, Pa. for Puerto Rico, going to families whose malnourished children had never even tasted milk. Why Heifers? Because as any FFA or 4-H member will tell you, these are young cows who 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.

Here's the true genius of the arrangement: 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 but powerful idea of giving families a source of food rather than short-term relief caught on and has grown and continued for almost 60 years. Millions of people in 115 countries are experiencing better health, more income and the joy of helping others as a result of Dan West's simple idea.

So are you still looking for a gift that will be remembered long after the rapidly approaching holiday is gone? Make it a gift of a heifer, or a goat. One such gift elicited this response from the recipient in Africa: “After the goats arrived, there was such an excitement in the house and enthusiasm to look after them. Their offspring have given us milk and improved the appearance and health of our children. We were so excited to pass the gift on to another family. I still follow-up and visit this family as we have become friends. Actually, we are even closer than that, as though related, because we were able to give them a gift.”-Lily Daka, Zambia.

It's easy to check out the scope of Heifer Project on line, and even easier to call them at 1-800-422-0474 and make a donation with a credit card. They will in turn mail you gift cards describing the gift made in your name for you to send to your friends or relatives. Do it now and they will arrive in plenty of time for the holidays.

I just made my 2006 Heifer Project gift order by phone, and ten packets of honey bees will soon be distributed in South and Central America to small farmers who will reap the sweetness of the honey, and help to pollinate their own, and their neighbors crops. My gift cards will arrive in seven to ten days.

It really was the most satisfying money I've spent all year, and it's “catalog shopping” that manages to put the true spirit of giving back into Christmas! If modern shopping is a sort of survival skill, then gift giving can be a part of that process too.