Category Archives: Guest Post

Where Empathy Comes From—Us!

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This is a guest post from World Ark contributing writer Jennifer Wheary, who is working on an article for a future issue about sharing communities.

puppy-fawnWe all need a little inspiration from time to time. Heifer, and especially its supporters, inspire me. There is incredible vision—meaning the ability to really see others and a way to help them—behind every donor’s contribution, large and small. I am proud to have written an article about Heifer’s work in East Africa for the current edition of World Ark.  I am also incredibly glad to have read this current edition, February 2013, cover to cover.

In this edition, Austin Bailey, World Ark senior editor, writes an excellent piece about Growing Kindness. I am a parent, and someone who struggles to be less self-centered. For me, Bailey’s reflections on how to sow the seeds of kindness and caring in her young sons hit home.

I read Bailey’s article with great interest, filed it somewhere in the back of my head, and moved on. A few weeks later, I came across an article on The Six Habits of Highly Empathic People while researching something for work. I immediately clicked. Or rather, things immediately started to click for me.

I had been researching something called collaborative consumption and was reading a wonderful online magazine devoted to the topic called Shareable.net. Shareable had republished (with permission of course) the empathy article (more on that later).

I quickly skimmed the six habits: “Cultivate curiosity about strangers,” explained the article. “Challenge prejudices,” “discover commonalities,” and “try another person’s life.” Listen to others, and open up about yourself. Inspire action and social change with an ambitious imagination. When I first glanced at the list, I must admit I saw it as a checklist. “How many of these do I get?” I thought to myself.  If I can check four out of six, am I empathetic enough?

As I was trying to tally my self-righteous empathy score, Bailey’s World Ark article on kindness came to mind. It was then I made an important connection. Empathy is not a competitive commodity. As the root of kindness, empathy is an ongoing, unfinished action. Put another way, the habits of empathy I was reading about were not a checklist, but an ever-present to-do list.

Though I saw it on Shareable, The Six Habits of Highly Empathic People originally appeared on the Greater Good website. Greater Good is the online presence of a science center at the University of Berkeley that “studies the psychology, sociology, and neuroscience of well-being, and teaches skills that foster a thriving, resilient, and compassionate society.”

Such a society sounds grand, and elusive, especially if it’s left up to limited people like me to create it. Fortunately it is not.

The point of the empathy article, of Bailey’s original piece in World Ark, and of the scientists studying how to build a thriving and compassionate world is that better behavior and an overall better place are actionable and achievable. Achievable now, in individual choices and small actions.

But it takes work, and it takes a lot of us working together.

If you delve into the Greater Good website at all (and I highly recommend you do), you will learn a lot about how and why to pursue this goal. One common theme underlying these efforts is the importance of paying attention and really seeing others. Heifer supporters show this incredible vision again and again.

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Direct Sales and the Future of Local Food

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Editor’s note: The following is a guest post from an outgoing Heifer International intern, Lesley Waterson. If you are interested in becoming an intern with Heifer International, please contact interns@heifer.org.

Friday was the conclusion of my internship with Heifer International. Since April 2012, I have been working closely with Heifer’s USA Country Program. I received assignments on a wide range of topics, which included internal management of Heifer USA’s documentation, investigation of state legislation to support local food, and research on direct sales avenues for local farmers. Seeing the newly renamed USA Seeds of Change Enterprise (SOC) evolve throughout the course of my time at Heifer has provided valuable perspective, and I am truly grateful to have worked with a team of passionate and creative individuals.

Local Food

Lesley, right, and Heifer International staff member Senchel Matthews on a site visit in Hughes, Arkansas. Photo courtesy of Heifer International.

The shift in direction that SOC is taking will no doubt offer Heifer a plethora of new opportunities. With a strong entrepreneurial spirit, SOC will eventually lead to building relationships with food sector businesses and has the potential to play a larger role in how Americans get their food. But where does this process begin?

Poco a poco se anda lejos. English translation: “Little by little, one goes far.”

This is one of my favorite Spanish proverbs. To me, it means that success comes slowly and with deliberate steps. If we want to build a successful social enterprise for Heifer’s domestic farmers, we need to start small, create a strong cooperative model, and move toward expanding the market from there. One of the ways to start small is to establish a handful of direct markets. Direct markets (i.e. farmers’ markets, community supported agriculture [CSAs], online local buying programs) offer small- and mid-scale farmers a consistent and viable income. Products sold directly to consumers give farmers a higher profit margin than if they were to sell to a retail or wholesale supplier. (See http://newfarm.rodaleinstitute.org/depts/midatlantic/FactSheets/direct_mrkt.shtml for more information). Direct markets also side-step tedious bureaucratic processes and establish more wholesome relationships with the farmers’ clientele. Hopefully these relationships will help farmers to feel a strong sense of pride in both their products and what they are doing for the community at large.

In the research I completed on direct sales avenues, it seems that there is a growing trend of incorporating workplaces as a place for farmers to connect with new potential consumers. What’s more, workplaces offer a beautiful chance to incorporate health insurance benefits to employees. Many companies with workplace CSAs or food share programs have provided payroll deduction options and even discounts on health insurance premiums for employees who participate. These options make participating in direct local food programs all the more attractive.

Here are the perks in a nutshell:

  • Farmers gain access to a consistent market
  • Employees (i.e. clientele) get affordable access to higher quality produce and farm products
  • Partnering businesses get bragging rights on innovative employee benefits and wellness programs
  • Health insurance companies have healthier customers (and fewer expenses) due to increased consumption of nutrient-rich farm products

Because these workplace CSAs and food share programs are still gaining ground, the hardest players to convince about the employee health benefits are the health insurance companies. But even this obstacle is slowly being overcome. Today there are a few examples in which health insurance companies are following suit in promoting local food. For instance, Fairshare CSA Coalition—based out of Madison County, Wisconsin—has created a rebate program ($100 for individuals and $200 for families) to support employees who want to buy local food. The rebate program is managed by four insurance companies—not the businesses where employees work. Since the program’s inception in 2005, rebates were claimed for 75% of all coalition CSA shares…a whopping 28,000 rebates in total. Check out http://www.csacoalition.org/ for more information.

With the changing climate of the healthcare industry and high obesity rates in the U.S., preventative health care measures will begin to play a larger role in our lives. This makes for an ideal time to involve local food and farmers.

Let me not simplify the difficulty in developing direct markets. Implementing such a program will require a lot of time, patience and energy. It will demand a detailed and flexible planning period. However, countless articles and trends point to a growing demand for local food. The more we—as consumers—vote with our dollar in supporting locally sourced food, the bigger the message that sends to our government’s leaders to modify how subsidies are divvied up among farmers. The pendulum of where our food comes from is slowly swinging away from the globally sourced commodity crops and is shifting towards a more centralized food system. I look forward to seeing where the local food scene goes next!

Local Food

Photo courtesy of Heifer International.

It is with bittersweet feelings that I conclude my internship with Heifer. It will be sad to leave all of the lovely employees and friends I’ve made who work at Headquarters, but the time that I’ve spent here has been overall an excellent experience. I look forward (and with great anticipation) to seeing how Heifer progresses—especially with such a colorful program like the Seeds of Change Enterprise.

We thank Lesley for her time here and wish her all the best in her future endeavors. If you are interested in becoming an intern with Heifer International, please contact interns@heifer.org.

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Volunteering for Heifer Through the Years

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Editor’s note: Today is International Volunteer Day 2012. This year’s theme is “Celebrate Volunteering!” Heifer International is supported by many volunteers, in both developed and developing countries. Today we share accounts from some of those volunteers. The following post is by Nancy Handke, a Heifer community volunteer in Clarendon Hills, Illinois.

Volunteers Welcome

Photo by sj-white. Used under Creative Commons license.

I first became aware of Heifer in the late 50s when my church elected me to be the Heifer representative. When the Chicago office opened, I became a volunteer mainly doing mailings. Soon I began volunteering in the office one or two days a week doing odd jobs plus setting up the computer database. Audrey Veath also was volunteering the same day, and we became dear friends. She suggested we have a quilt auction for Heifer International. Together we chaired the auction, which was held every three years. It became the major fundraiser for the Chicago office.

My church got a new rector, who one day asked me if I thought we could put on something like a Living Gift Market for our community. I thought I had died and gone to Heaven! And thus in 2007, the Family Farm Fest was born. We are a small congregation, but have become a dedicated Heifer church where everyone volunteers for Family Farm Fest. The event is held in our church parking lot the first Saturday of August every year. We have 10 animal booths, each of which has a “hands on” craft project for children and a Heifer volunteer who explains how the animal is used to improve the lives of the Heifer recipients. There are games, food, cake walks, and of course live animals. The llamas and alpacas are a huge hit as they walk around the grounds. In 2011 we even had a camel. We begin working on the Fest in January. A big part of our focus is spreading the word about Heifer. Starting in May we go to all the local and surrounding communities and have booths in their fairs, street dances, Daisy Days, etc. where we handout Heifer material along with a flyer about Family Farm Fest. We attract up to 1,000 + at the Fest and have been very lucky in raising Gift Arks for Heifer.

This past August we had a simulated Passing on the Gift ceremony with a script written by two Heifer volunteers. We also invited the Church of the Brethren, Union Church and a Muslim congregation to join with us, and “man” a booth to make our festival more ecumenical and inclusive of the community. The day after the Family Farm Fest, we had big celebration service in church, where there wasn’t a dry eye while everyone rejoiced in the accomplishment of raising Gift Arks for Heifer.

Heifer International is so very dear to my heart. It is the only charity where, in all my 81 years, I have volunteered where I know the money goes where it does the most good and keeps on giving. It is not a one shot deal like so many other charities are. Another benefit I treasure is the many wonderful friends I have made. Heifer volunteers are the best!

Become a Heifer Volunteer.

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The Spirit of Volunteerism

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Editor’s note: Today is International Volunteer Day 2012. This year’s theme is “Celebrate Volunteering!” Heifer International is supported by many volunteers, in both developed and developing countries. Today we share accounts from some of those volunteers. The following post is by Richard Ims, residential volunteer at Heifer Ranch in Perryville, Arkansas.

Heifer Ranch volunteer Richard milking goat

Richard Ims milks a goat at Heifer Ranch. Photo courtesy of Heifer International.

A pessimist, they say, sees a glass of water as being half empty; an optimist sees the same glass as half full.
But a giving person sees a glass of water and starts looking for someone who might be thirsty.

– G. Donald Gale

Research has documented the benefits of volunteering. Health seems to improve both physically and mentally for those who give of themselves for others. But this is not our motivation. It is only a glancing consequence to truly getting behind something we believe in. We’d do it regardless of any quid pro quo perk.

It is a calling.

The very definition of volunteering is a service-act of one’s own freewill…..without compensation. This lack of compensation, at the heart of it, should include any “warm-fuzzy” we might be addicted to as amelioration for our “good” actions. This is the yardstick we use to help critique our own motivation in aiding others. How does this make me feel?  A legitimate question, yes…..but not the compelling factor. We can and should certainly feel fulfilled as a human being when we are able to help relieve another’s plight. This is why we exist. This is why we were created. But the yearning of compassion relentlessly tugs.

Love cannot remain by itself — it has no meaning.
Love has to be put into action, and that action is service.

– Mother Teresa

Therefore, always take the stance of humility and be ready to have your own plight relieved by another….and accept it graciously. To be fully human is in part, to know how to pass on AND receive the gift when freely given. The whole and mature volunteer knows and lives this principle comfortably.

Now allow me to also ponder the agricultural definition of a volunteer [read: a plant which springs up from its own seed]:  “Growing, without being intentionally seeded by hand.”

We volunteers, miraculously grow more deeply without the expectation of constantly being re-seeded by any profit motivation. We just give, as we have been given already from the start, better off for not fully knowing our impact:

It is like a man who casts seed upon the soil;he goes to bed at night and gets up by day,and the seed sprouts up and grows– how, he himself does not know.

– Mark 4:27

We need focus outside our own selves. The lack of this outward focus has been one of the deadliest downfalls of our recent societal trend: Individualism and the stubborn, immature and selfish stance of “me.”

In many ways, WHAT volunteering effort we get behind almost doesn’t matter. It is THAT we get behind something other than ourselves and our own agendas, which makes the difference:

If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people together to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work,
but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.

– Antoine de Saint Exupery

My wife and I have been full-time volunteers for the past 12 years. We’ve had to sacrifice a lot to do this, but no thing greater than our own agendas and ideas of success. Much of our inspiration has come from other volunteers, especially the young voices and activists who have more of a global perspective than we ever did at their ages. It gives us great hope and great pride in the human endeavor.

Only when we give joyfully, without hesitation or thought of gain, can we truly know what love means.

– Leo Buscaglia

Richard's wife, Jina, volunteering in Kitchen at Heifer Ranch

Richard's wife, Jina, volunteering in the kitchen at Heifer Ranch. Photo courtesy of Heifer International.

Of course, most are not called to full-time volunteering. There are so many important family responsibilities that trump this lifestyle. But the care we give our own family members is also a call in the spirit of volunteerism and “going beyond the call of duty,” which nurtures and manifests that same spirit in our future generations through leading by example.

No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.

– Aesop

So serve in the situation and opportunity your creator has given you already. Then be open and vigilant to the opportunities that pervade your own community. In this way we may gracefully expand into the void that begs to be filled by love and care and then without fail, the act exponentially multiplies and causes a ripple effect.

How lovely to think that no one need wait a moment: we can start now, start slowly changing the world! How lovely that everyone, great and small, can make a contribution toward introducing justice straight away.

– Anne Frank

It is pure pleasure to know that we work with fellow volunteers and in our own way, foster greater Love, Peace and Joy in the human spirit; to encourage and be encouraged. Remain steadfast and please don’t let the task-oriented, hard-wiring of our society make you forget why you do what you do. Volunteering is way beyond a job, so don’t make it one. Take the time to smell the roses you are planting through your positive energy and desire to serve. In this way, we journey together to one day become more fully human.

I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.
Those among you who will be truly happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.

– Dr. Albert Schweitzer

Become a Heifer Volunteer.

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Heifer Volunteers, We Thank You

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Editor’s note: Today is International Volunteer Day 2012. This year’s theme is “Celebrate Volunteering!” Heifer International is supported by many volunteers, in both developed and developing countries. Today we share accounts from our volunteers and staff. The following post is by Kate Merrill, Heifer’s Atlanta Community Engagement Coordinator.

I’m often asked by my colleagues in other charities how Heifer is able to maintain over 80 percent of its revenue from contributions, even in the hardest of economic times, and continue to build upon the 18.5 million families around the world Heifer has helped. I tell them that it’s simple – we have an amazingly diverse and widespread grassroots network of helpers. People who feel a deep connection to our work are embedded in communities across the U.S., sharing Heifer in their congregations, schools, civic organizations, at local fairs and festivals and even dropping Heifer Gift Catalogs in doctor’s offices and airplane seat pockets. They are young and old, of every background and race, and individual powerhouses of energy and enthusiasm for sharing our work. They keep our mission alive at the local level so we can train, educate and empower impoverished communities on a global level.

Early Heifer Volunteers

Early Heifer Volunteers: the Seagoing Cowboys. Photo courtesy of Heifer International.

The first Heifer volunteers stood up in Dan West’s church in 1944 and offered cows to struggling families in Puerto Rico. Then young male volunteers, called “Seagoing Cowboys,” transported our animals on ships to our first projects around the world. And while our volunteers no longer need a farming background to contribute, they have the same heart for helping the poor help themselves through a passion for sharing our mission.

The line distinguishing a donor from a volunteer at Heifer is nonexistent. Anyone who gives a gift of an animal to another person is passing on our mission to another person. We are all advocates for Heifer’s work each time we share with others how the simple gift of an animal can be the difference between hunger and self-reliance for a family in need.

Young volunteer.

Photo courtesy of Heifer International.

Many of the staff at Heifer were once volunteers themselves, and many who have moved on from Heifer still are! Heifer’s mission lives inside of us for a lifetime, bringing out the best in us as we work together to create a more just and sustainable world.

Volunteering for Heifer feels good because helping others feels good. People flock to you to tell you their story about how they’ve supported Heifer, why they love the mission and what their favorite animal to give is. Like-minded people engage you in conversations about feeding the world’s poor. People thank you for sharing Heifer with them! Atlanta volunteers, Ernie Scott and Polly Holder, tell me how much it inspires them when they give a presentation or staff a booth and are surrounded by an instant community of people eager to help others. Ernie says, “It reminds me that I’m not alone.”

Photo courtesy of Heifer International.

It is easy to get overwhelmed by the problems in our world and feel that as an individual, there is little to be done to enact positive change. I’m reminded of something Fred Rogers said: “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’” No matter how disparaging things might be, we hold an incredible power to inspire and empower others through our actions. For each animal Heifer gives, there is an average of six pass-ons through Passing on the Gift. The same rings true for sharing Heifer’s work. Pass on to others why you support Heifer, and watch it grow. Being a helper is one of the easiest, most personally fulfilling ways to make a difference in the world.

Volunteer group.

Photo courtesy of Heifer International.

On this International Volunteer Day, we thank you – our endlessly hopeful, dedicated Heifer Helpers – for making Heifer’s work possible through every gift you give, booth you staff, presentation you do, and conversation you have that moves us one step closer to ending hunger and poverty. Thank you for sharing Heifer in your sphere of influence and giving the gift of hope to families all over the world.

Become a Heifer Volunteer.

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CSA Model Helps Feed the World

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Editor’s note: Today is World Food Day. This year’s theme is “Agricultural cooperatives – key to feeding the world.” The following post is from Ryan Neal, who runs the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) garden at Heifer’s Learning Center at Heifer Ranch.

CSA volunteers on harvest day

Heifer Ranch CSA helpers with a bountiful harvest. Photo courtesy of Heifer International.

There are probably as many types of agricultural cooperatives as varieties of tomatoes.  Whether consumer- or producer-run, cooperatives are a major player in feeding the globe.  Locally run examples include your local agriculture co-op where farmers purchase supplies, or even farmers markets where those same farmers get together to sell their products. Cooperatives have proven to be successful models in development when small farmers can get together in order to fill large orders needed by grocery stores.

Our model here at Heifer Ranch is commonly referred to as Community Supported Agriculture or CSA. The basic premise of this type of cooperative is participants, or “shareholders,” buy a share of our garden for the spring and summer growing seasons.  They do this in advance of the harvest in order to cover some of our upfront costs such as seeds, organic fertilizer, etc. In exchange we deliver to these shareholders a variety (typically seven to nine types) of vegetables each week, which changes as the weather warms. This type of cooperation allows the consumers a real connection to a farm and gives the farmer a chance to focus on production rather than marketing during the busy season.

Harvesting day on a CSA is a group effort.

Harvesting day at the Heifer Ranch CSA is a group effort. Photo courtesy of Heifer International.

Feeding the world’s expected 9 billion people in 2050 will take more than a one-size-fits-all approach, and local cooperatives such as the one supported at Heifer Ranch might prove critical in supplying the sufficient quality and quantity of food we have come to expect. CSAs are present in many communities around the United States as well as the world. In fact, this model originated in Europe and Japan more than 50 years ago. CSAs can be found that support multiple farmers as well as multiple types of farmers.  A recent winter CSA started in the Little Rock, Arkansas, area, for example, includes meat, vegetables and eggs from three different farms.

CSA helpers at Heifer Ranch

Photo courtesy of Heifer International.

Check out localharvest.org/csa/ for examples in your area.

Are you a CSA member? Tell us about your CSA in the comments section below.

Read more of Heifer’s coverage of World Food Day 2012 here.

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Susan Sarandon: Heifer International’s Work Empowers Women

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Susan Sarandon in Cambodia

I have followed and supported Heifer International’s work with women and their families for more than 20 years. I am excited Heifer is a featured nonprofit for the Half the Sky movement, which premieres its documentary tonight at 9pm Eastern. Last year I had the chance to see Heifer’s work in person in Cambodia, and below are my reflections on the importance of Heifer’s transformational work with women. Women, particularly in poor rural communities, really are the “glue” and the key to ending global hunger and poverty.

 

 

I encourage all of you to watch Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, a four-hour television series on your local PBS station.

Editor’s note: Photo and video courtesy of Heifer International.

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Glorious Food

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The following is an essay on mindful eating submitted by Diane Baron, a Heifer International supporter from Asheville, N.C.Thanks, Diane!

“Father, Son and Holy Ghost. The one who eats the fastest gets the most.”

My grandfather used to say that, my mom tells me, and I’d bet it was a silent prayer in many other homes. Especially if there were boys, brothers in my case, at the table. Even as a small girl I had the appetite of an active teenage boy, and despite nearing age 50, I still do.

Someone in our family who seemed immune to the challenges of a runaway appetite was my grandfather’s younger daughter, my aunt, a Catholic Benedictine sister. If she had been a practicing Buddhist, I would say she had aced “The Middle Way.”

Sister entered the convent at age 17, and a 82 is still teaching and adjudicating piano solos. She’s gotten up before dawn to practice tai chi close to 20 years, and at age 60 she began taking harp lessons.

I’ve studied her habits (no pun intended) relating to food since I was young and brimming with gusto for the big worlds of nature, art, dance, music, books and especially food. While the rest of her extended family gobbled throughout the holidays, I never saw her volunteer as quality control tester at the stove, serve herself a second helping of food or take a nap after eating. Her dishes were always cleaned off like they hadn’t even been used.

I remember one Thanksgiving in particular. With the same alert energy with which she sat down at the table, at the end of the meal she was clearing plates and transferring food from serving dishes to plastic containers. Then she stood at the sink and hand-washed dish after dish, plate after plate, platters, glasses, utensils. How much tableware could six people dirty? Then she S.O.S.-ed the roasting pan! It was Herculean. She continued on, soaking one tea towel after another, drying everything by hand all to say, “Thank you for inviting me.” Whatever I did to help with the before-meal preparations (make cranberry sherbet, set the table and eat stuffing bread) was nothing compared to this.

After our feast I slugged my way from the dining room to drape myself over the kitchen table, where I watched her with awe and thought of how she took on our suffering for us. I could hardly move, sit upright or breathe, and there she stood–steady, poised and heroic, 35 years my senior, with all the vitality and freshness of someone my preteen years of age. With her dignified bearing, she even appeared to enjoy being helpful at such an overwhelming time. Why hadn’t we all just given thanks over a shared box of Saltine crackers and been done with it?

Sister was used to monastic life being orderly, precisely timed and ship-shape. When we visited at her Pennsylvania monastery, dinner was always at a specific hour. While Sister modestly ate one serving, we kids, cousins, great nieces and nephews scarfed up food like lusty pirates at an all-you-can-eat buffet, running back for seconds before they whisked the big metal pans back into the kitchen.

Once, we had so much food to finish that the sisters on the clean-up detail were hoisting chairs up on the tables and vacuuming around us. Our plates were loaded like we hadn’t eaten for weeks, rather than just the five hours since lunch.

If we gifted Sister with a box of candy, she took one piece and set the rest out to share with her community. Who was this woman/martyr/saint? How could she have so much self-control to not indulge in what she clearly liked? How could she be so disciplined and moderate?

When I was 16 I experimented with convent life to see if I had a vocation, only to realize that I had a temperament more like Zorba the Greek.

Six years later I spent the summer in Marine Corps boot camp in Parris Island, South Carolina, home of sand fleas, intense heat and humidity. Everything we recruits were commanded to undertake was supposed to be accomplished faster than possible. That included eating.

The sequence through the chow line was as follows: The recruits who needed to put on weight filed in at the front of the line so that they could go through a second time to get more chow. The weight control recruits were put at the rear so that they didn’t have enough time to eat. We all ate as fast as we could because if one of us finished bolting her food, we were all supposed to be finished, then jump up and clear our trays.

This routine wasn’t cutting it for me, so one chow time I decided to shovel in a few more bites before jumping up. The red-headed sergeant drill instructor who I was terrified of planted her oxfords in front of me with her hands curled in fists on her hips and yelled, “YOU PIG!” Let’s say, I heard her. My first pseudo-satori.

From that day until the end of the nine-week boot camp I ate only what I could mindfully chew and whittled to an alert-minded, lean-bodied 111 pounds. On graduation day when another drill instructor pinned the eagle, globe and anchor emblem on my cover and called me a marine for the first time, I felt invincible.

Actually, for the first time I felt like I imagined my aunt did. Clear. Capable. Courageous. I could probably even wash a humongous pile of Thanksgiving dishes.

 

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Betty Londergan Reflects on Classy Award

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Editor’s note: The following is a guest post from blogger Betty Londergan of Heifer 12 x 12. 

CA-RegionalWinner-Badge

On Sunday night, I got the call that I was named Volunteer of the Year from the Southern Region in the CLASSY Awards for the work I am doing on Heifer12 x12.com, a blog project taking me to 12 countries in 12 months in 2012 to see and write about the work of Heifer International. For those of you who don’t know (and I sure didn’t), this is the largest philanthropic awards ceremony in the country, celebrating the greatest charitable achievements by nonprofit organizations, socially conscious businesses, and individuals worldwide. In 2012, more than 2,400 organizations and volunteers were nominated for a CLASSY Award, and their collective efforts impacted the lives of more than 200,000,000 people in 71 countries worldwide.

Betty Londergan in Peru

Photo courtesy of Heifer International

I was totally honored to be nominated, I was stunned to make the regional finals, and I was delirious when they told me I won my region– particularly since the other nominees were wonderful people who had accomplished remarkable things.

In fact, when they asked me why I thought I should win, I believe I said something like, “Oh, I don’t. There are so many people who are more worthy than I am.” My husband thought that was a really dumb thing to say but the truth is, I don’t think I deserve to win. However, I absolutely believe that Heifer should get all the recognition and honor this award brings! So I’m even daring to hope I’ll win nationally on September 22  (although the other three regional winners are really spectacular), because I figure it will shine a klieg light of fame on the real heroes: Heifer staff and beneficiaries around the world.


When I started my blog in Uganda (a test run before the real thing), and for the first 7 months of travel this year, I have been routinely blown away by the incredible commitment and insane work ethic of Heifer staff in the field. As I’m writing this, their faces are popping up in my mind: Peter in Uganda, Bryan in Guatemala, Ewaldy and Hervil in Haiti, Madeline in Peru, Tony in China, Goma in Nepal, Humphrey in Cameroon, Laura in Romania, Jeffrey in Appalachia… such talented people working such long hours and bringing all their creativity to the table to help end hunger and poverty in their countries.

I have been so privileged to get to see Heifer projects around the world; to learn the culture and history of each of these countries and how it’s shaped the challenges we face in making sustainable change; to meet the beautiful, courageous, undaunted and hard-working people who Heifer works with and for … and then to come back and write my stories in a way that brings those people and those situations alive for my readers.

It’s been a journey filled with harder work than I ever thought, with more love and joy than I imagined possible. And I’m grateful in every way that I’ve been able to help Heifer tell the story of the complex, difficult, compassionate, essential work it’s doing in the world.

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