A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that my family of origin is very focused on the gift giving aspect of the Christmas celebration. In that post I mentioned that if I even thought about giving Heifer Project gifts to my mom it would be a scandal of epic proportions.

Turns out, not everyone knows what the Heifer Project is! One of those blind spots we all have, I guess. Sometimes it is easy to assume everyone knows what we know. Turns out that is not the case. So this week I want to highlight The Heifer Project.

Heifer International is a well established and respected charity that strives to give “struggling families around the world and in the U.S. a chance for self-reliance, income, education for their children and many other benefits that result when people have the means to take care of themselves.”

Making a donation to the Heifer Project is a lot more like shopping than just handing over money because you have the chance to designate your gift toward a particular animal or collection of animals. This makes it especially easy to involve younger children in the process and open a dialog with them about all sorts of things. From giving, to helping, to what it’s like to live as a subsistence farmer as opposed to in suburban America.

Some people are so into this idea that they even ask their wedding guests to make donations to the Heifer Project instead of buying them china or toasters! Imagine that!

To facilitate this idea, Heifer International has a website that allows one to set up Gift Registries. And I’ve done just that! I thought it might be a good little project around Chez Journey to see how many people we could get to give to the Heifer Project instead of just exchanging gift cards.

And, in the spirit of the season, I want to include all of you as well. Over there in the sidebar (or right here, for those that don’t want to look) is a button linked to my registry entry page. Go ahead and click over and look around. If you can, consider giving $10 or $20 towards some chickens or a cow. Or even towards a Water Buffalo! There’s pictures and descriptions of how the animals in question will help the family/village where they are given.

For my vegetarian friends… not all these gifts are animals for eating! Some, like the water buffalo and the bees help the local farmers to grow crops like rice and fruit. Others, like the knitting basket, allow people to clothe their families and even make cloth or clothing for sale.

Plus plus plus, if you give a gift through my registry, you can still dedicate it to someone you love. There’s an opportunity at the end of the process to create either an e-card or a mailed card announcing your gift in someone’s name.

The goal or “event” date is Dec 25 but the registry will be up until January 6 (Three Kings day.)

I hope you’ll try it out this year.

Peace.
— — —
A year ago (or longer) on This Journey…

catapult 2009
Rules to Live By 2008
can’t sleep 2007

November 28th, 2007 | Category: faith, holidays, social justice | Subscribe to comments | Leave a comment | Trackback URL