Category Archives: Series

How To Give Instead of Spending

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If you’ve been looking for a way to spend less and give more, there’s an app for that. it’s called Instead. It helps you see how your small daily purchases can add up to make big change in the world.

“Instead is a new micro-donation app for nonprofits that enourages people to live within or below their means in order to give.”

How does it work? Well, it’s simple.

1. You decide what you want to start to give up. Maybe your daily take-out coffee habit? Or decide to go out to eat less.

2. Next, you decide how much you want to donate.

Give up your daily $4 takeout coffee habit during the week? Then give that money INSTEAD to a charity (think Heifer).

3. Choose your nonprofit. You will see a list to choose from, but I recommend you choose Heifer!

4. After you pick your nonprofit, the app asks for your name and credit card number.

This is safe and secure through their security platform. 

5. You give instead of spending.

Change the world a little at a time, starting today.

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Weekly Article Roundup: Creating a Commitment for Food Security

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As an organization, we are committed to working to end hunger and poverty while caring for the Earth. This also includes committing to providing a long-term sustainable solution for food security to our projects worldwide.

In the United States, we’re working in the Delta and Appalachia to provide resources and training for farmers to begin providing for their family and community. Take a look at these articles regarding our Seeds of Change project and poverty in the U.S.

We are also excited to hear President Obama and the G8 commitment to food security. Heifer CEO, Pierre Ferrari wrote a post today regarding how we welcome their announcement today that brings private and public sectors together to make a difference in Africa.

Roger Thurow, senior fellow at the Chicago Council on Global affairs wrote a post on how the benefit to reaching women farmers on HuffPost Impact. 

To follow along to the G8 summit, check out the Global Agriculture Development Initiative here, or follow on Twitter with hashtag #GlobalAg. 

 

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Volunteers Make a World of Difference

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Photo by Chelsey McNiel, Communications Intern, Heifer Headquaters

Photo by Chelsey McNiel, Communications Intern, Heifer Headquarters

Heifer International volunteers change lives as they share in our mission to end hunger and poverty and care for the Earth. They generate support and spread joy through fundraising, education and meaningful relationships.

In the Southern Philippines, volunteers helped project participants learn methods and strategies for improved animal health.

Jun Ayensa, regional program manager for Heifer Southern Philippines, captured their work in a photo story.

Learn how you can make a world of difference

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From the Field: Dreams Become Reality

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This weekly post shines a light on a handful of stories from Heifer.org’s “From the Field”From the Field section.

Gegham, a 13-year-old rural youth engaged in Heifer Armenia’s Young Agriculturists Network of Armenia (YANOA) project, dreamed of establishing his own duck farm. He developed a business plan through his local YES! Youth Club and was awarded a $100 seed grant to put his plan into action. His little farm quickly grew and Gegham passed on his seed grant to another youth. He said he does his best to learn about the ducks well-being and how to give proper care.

Thirteen-year- old Gegham started a duck farm using a $100 seed grant from Heifer Armenia. Photo by Anna Arakelyan, Business Education Expert, Development Principles NGO

Thirteen-year- old Gegham started a duck farm using a $100 seed grant from Heifer Armenia. Photo by Anna Arakelyan, Business Education Expert, Development Principles NGO

In Vietnam, one Heifer family is enhancing their impact with promising results. Tran Thi Cuc Huong and her husband, Nguyen Van Lieu, grow coconuts, dragon fruit and morning glory and raise chickens and pigs. They use a biogas system to turn pig manure into methane for cooking and electricity, which also prevents their ponds from being polluted. Huong said their dreams of expanding and helping others only became a reality with hard work, creativity and knowledge from Heifer’s trainings.

For 61 new project families in Gui Xi Village, China, the dream of ending hunger and poverty is taking its first steps. The village’s first Passing on the Gift® (POG) ceremony in April 2013, presented these families with gifts of livestock and welcomed them into a community achieving promising results of improved living conditions, education and health. The new families agreed to Pass on the Gifts and continue to spread unity and love in their community.

Learn how you can help dreams become reality

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Around the Web: A Visit from a Friend, Awards, Architecture, Chicken Coops

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Every week we highlight some of the people who are funding our work creatively or helping us spread the word of our mission online. If you spot Heifer International while you’re surfing the web or know of a fun or creative fundraising effort, please share it with us here in the comments.

Patrick Rothfuss at Heifer Ranch

Photo courtesy of Heifer International

Fantasy author Patrick Rothfuss and his Worldbuilders team came to visit Heifer International headquarters in Little Rock and Heifer Ranch in Perryville. While here he talked to a reporter from the Arkansas Times, who wrote up this great story about the visit and about the Worldbuilders’ successful fundraising efforts.

Congrats to Broward County Public Schools Nova High School teacher Shawna Morgan, this year’s Florida Economic Educator of the Year. A human geography teacher, Morgan and her students supported various international causes including Heifer International.

John Savitski AIA, blogger for Traverse 360 Architecture happened up Heifer International headquarters and shares his photos and thoughts.

Coop d'Hill

Photo credit: Coop d’Hill

More than a dozen poultry raisers opened their coops to visitors on May 18, with donations received during the tours going to help end hunger through Heifer. What a great way to learn about raising chickens and Heifer International.

Congrats to Dr. Trevor Tomkins, who has been active with Heifer International as a board member and the Heifer Foundation. He was recently honored with the 2013 Distinguished Service Award for his life-long contributions to the feed industry by the American Feed Industry Association.

Vice President of Heifer’s Africa Program, Elizabeth Bintliff, talks with dowser about the East Africa Dairy Project, which recently received $8.5 million from the Gates Foundation.

The Rotary Youth hope to purchase an ark through Heifer International, which includes a pair of each animal, and have held many fundraisers this year to accomplish their goal, such as Rotaraking, helping with tours, and their latest event, electronics recycling.

Have you checked out When Cows Fly yet? It’s an online portal where Heifer donors, volunteers and participants from around the world can share their stories. Like this fiber artist, who is using her talents to benefit others. Or Sarah Sow, who donated a gift to Heifer in honor of her mother, as well as her good friend Polly Pig’s mother. (You are curious about their names, aren’t you? Click through and find out!) Heifer Sacramento shared info about a Fun Raiser fundraiser they are holding, and a California church’s Bike-a-Thon. You can share your story, too.

 

 

 

 

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Don’t Be a Rat, Unpack!

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Every week we feature a fun and/or educational activity you can try at home or in the classroom. Today is National Pack Rat Day and like pack rats, some of us tend to collect more belongings than we really need. Here at Heifer International we encourage people to practice Sharing and Caring, one of Heifer’s 12 Cornerstones for Just and Sustainable Development. If you’ve got some things to unpack, here are a few options to lighten your load.

Pack Rat

Photo credit: oddlovescompany.com

  1. Hold a Clothing Swap
    Donating old clothing is helpful, but a swap can make a more direct impact in your neighborhood or organization. Ask participants to bring a few articles of clothing and then have fun haggling over the trades. A swap can also be done with shoes, toys and books.
  2. Upcycle With Style
    Old T-shirts for quilt squares, abandoned toys as planters and plastic grocery bags to make trash cans-Pinterest is filled with DIY instructions. Inventive minds are a powerful tool in caring for the earth. Before you recycle, try to find ways to upcycle the weary and worn things in your cluttered closets.
  3. Give Your Time
    If you have a “load” of time on your hands, why not use it to help others organize their abundant belongings? Or, use it in other meaningful ways like taking a meal to new parents, offering to walk your elderly neighbor’s dog or care for the Earth by picking up trash.

Through cooperation and friendship, there are many ways to share and care. Be creative and get involved in your community. Small acts of kindness will spread, building a large network of giving to Pass on the Gift® of hope, unity and friendship.

Learn how you can spend meaningful time at Heifer

 

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Incredible Mothers of Rwanda

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Rwanda Mothers

Photo courtesy of Heifer International

In African villages where Heifer International’s mission has not yet reached, lives mothers who struggle daily to feed and care for their families.

Rwandan mothers of Heifer projects share the same struggles. They are determined to build thriving businesses and provide for their children.

These incredible mothers of Rwanda are proud of their children and dream of overcoming the challenge of hunger and poverty.

Leigh Wood, Heifer’s donor engagement manager, shares about her recent visit with these amazing women.

Empower mothers around the globe

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From the Field: Insights For Positive Change

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This weekly post shines a light on a handful of stories from Heifer.org’s “From the Field”From the Field section.

A team from Heifer Philippines visited successful dairy projects to ensure correct development and operation of its first dairy project, which aims to benefit 1,000 families. On their study visits, the group discussed animal stocks, dairy processing and production with farm owners. A participant said the new insights and firsthand experience will help shorten the learning curve and improve the new project’s design.

A batch of Nubian and Saanen dairy goats, which are about to be milked, head toward the milking parlor at the St. Elmo's Goat and Dairy Farm in the Philippines. Photo by Jun Ayensa, Regional Program Manager, Heifer Southern Philippines

A batch of Nubian and Saanen dairy goats, which are about to be milked, head toward the milking parlor at the St. Elmo’s Goat and Dairy Farm in the Philippines. Photo by Jun Ayensa, Regional Program Manager, Heifer Southern Philippines

In South Africa, three donors recently had the chance to visit project participants to experience the positive change their generosity has made. Heifer staff took the donors on a two-day journey to four projects in the Limpopo Province. “Hearing and seeing firsthand always makes a difference,” Donor Archie Vermeulen said. “Clearly [Heifer's] positive intervention with the communities has made a huge impact.”

Edvard Hovhannisyan lives in the remote highland community of Harzhis village, Armenia. He has established his livelihood in the productivity of his cows and the Union of Pasture Users of Harzhis Consumers Cooperative, which is associated with the project Community Agricultural Resource Management and Competitiveness (CARMAC). The cooperative’s 84 families share equipment and pasture land in hopes that their joint efforts will increase income and promote community improvement.

Join the fight against hunger and poverty.

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Around the Web: Odds and Ends, Making a Difference, Teachers on a Roof

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Every week we highlight some of the people who are funding our work creatively or helping us spread the word of our mission online. If you spot Heifer International while you’re surfing the web or know of a fun or creative fundraising effort, please share it with us here in the comments.

Brookhaven students

Photo credit: NeighborNewspapers.com

For months now, second-grade students at Our Lady of the Assumption Catholic School in Brookhaven, Georgia, have been doing various odds and ends, including holding lemonade sales and homemade baked cookie sales, babysat siblings, prepared lunches and cleared neighbors’ backyards. They easily surpassed last year’s total of $1,200, with $2,000.

Thanks to Nancy for her fundraising efforts on her blog, Realizing I Can Help…my journey of trying to make a difference. She’s on her way to reaching her goal.

Heifer international was mentioned as the best  in three separate categories in Little Rock’s Sync Weekly Who’s the Best of the Metro: Green Business, Local Cause and Non-Profit Organization.

Maguire House

Photo credit: TheMaguirehouseBB.blogspot.com/

What’s happening in and around Maguire House? 100 Things to Do and See Within 100 Miles, including Heifer’s Learning Center at Overlook Farm in Rutland, Massachusetts.

Another local publication, Little Rock Soiree, featured Heifer this week in 4 Fabulous Ideas To Put a Little Spring in Your Step which shines a spotlight on Feast in the Field,  a special dinner to be held May 18 to raise funds and awareness for sustainable agriculture benefiting Heifer projects in the Arkansas Delta and Nepal.

Longmont Suzuki Strings

Photo credit: Longmont Suzuki Strings

Kids from ages 2 to 11, students of Longmont Suzuki Strings in Colorado, performed at a concert to benefit Heifer International on May 11. The instructor, Erron Lacy, said, “I enjoy watching the students get excited about helping others. They do it with such a pure heart and love for children across the world they will never meet. Their dedication to the benefit concert, through careful practice, is so inspiring.”

Raising the Roof

Photo credit: The Gadsden Times

“Kindergartners and elementary students at Coosa Christian School ‘raised the roof’ so their teachers would have to sit on it.” These students were part of the Coosa Coin Challenge, donating spare change to different charities chosen by each grade. The third graders chose Heifer. They beat last year’s total, raising the roof, and their reward was sending teachers and faculty up to the roof for the day.

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Watch Love Grow on Mother’s Day

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Every week we feature a fun and/or educational activity you can try at home or in the classroom. The U.S. wears a mask of western wealth, but hunger and poverty are still a reality for many communities in the Arkansas Delta and Appalachia. Heifer International is making a difference in our own backyard with the Seeds of Change project.

On Mother’s Day, you can make a difference too. Heifer’s Gift Catalog offers ideas that will impact mothers worldwide and create positive, lasting change. And to present your mom with this alternative gift, make a Mother’s Day card that will let her watch love grow.

Flower Pot Card
Photo credit: karewares.blogspot.com

How to make a growing flower pot card.

What you need:

Follow these steps:

  1. Cut out the flower pot from the printable template.
  2. Once your seed paper is ready, cut out four flowers that are one inch smaller than the width of the flower pot.
  3. Write a message on the first three flowers like “I love you,” or “World’s Best Mom.” (One word on each flower.)
  4. Glue the photo to the fourth flower.
  5. Cut out grass to place at the top of the flower pot, or use the grass template.
  6. Cut a piece of yarn long enough to place all four flowers on its length.
  7. In order of your message, glue (tape or staple) the flowers to the yarn; leaving a small tab at the top to pull the flowers out of the pot when finished.
  8. Glue the bottom of the yarn to the inside bottom of the flower pot.
  9. Glue the flower pot template together, let dry.
  10. Write “Happy Mother’s Day” on the front of the flower pot.

Once you are done, insert the flowers and yarn into the flower pot. When you pull on the yarn tab, the flowers will come out revealing your message and lastly, your photo. Make sure Mom plants her seed paper flowers so she can watch love grow from her Mother’s Day card. Simply place the seed paper flowers into raked ground, cover with about half an inch of soil and keep moist. Germination should take about six to eight weeks.

Learn how Heifer is growing Seeds of Change.

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Female Farmer Succeeds Through Training

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Story by John Allen | External Relations Specialist | Heifer South Africa

Constance Masala, her husband and two children live in Musunda village, South Africa. For several years, their village suffered from a serious drought and the family survived month to month on a meager government grant.

A couple years after joining the Khongode Project in 2009, the family received five goats and livestock training from Heifer South Africa. During Heifer’s training, Constance studied basic veterinary care and also trained her children to detect when the animals have fallen ill. Now she can correctly identify common diseases, properly measure medications, vaccinate livestock against diseases and assist during problematic births. She also learned how to protect her goats from baboons and jackals, which plague the village.

Goats, training

Through Heifer’s training, Constance Masala and her children have learned how to properly care for their goats. Photo courtesy of Heifer South Africa

Constance has successfully reared eight more goats from her original five, which have brought joy to the Masala family and other impoverished families through Passing on the Gift® (POG). During a June 14, 2012 POG ceremony, Constance passed on a pregnant goat to project participant Gladys Munzhelele, which allowed Gladys to start a small-scale farming business.

“Our lives have changed,” Constance said. “Every morning my husband and I and the kids go to the kraal to check if the goats slept well.”

This Mother’s Day, help women like Constance improve their livelihoods and provide for their families. Give your mother a gift of purpose and impact. Gift Different. Give Heifer.

This Mother's Day. Gift Different. Give Heifer. Photo courtesy of Heifer International

This Mother’s Day. Gift Different. Give Heifer. Photo courtesy of Heifer International

Learn how you can help Pass on the Gift®

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From the Field: Assembled to Celebrate

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This weekly post shines a light on a handful of stories from Heifer.org’s “From the Field”From the Field section.

Heifer International project participants work hard every day to Pass on the Gift® (POG) they once received and transition from recipient to donor. Sharing their success often brings participants joy and a commendable cause to celebrate.

In March and April 2013, Heifer Cambodia self-help groups (SHG) organized seven POG ceremonies. More than 820 families shared gifts of livestock, vegetables, tree seeds and rice with new project families. During one ceremony, POG recipient Chea Sambo responded with gratitude to her donor family, “Words cannot express how happy I am to receive the gifts. I promise to take good care of the animal and improve my garden so that I can pass on to other needy families, and become a donor like your family.Thanks much to your family and to Heifer.”

April 2013

Heifer Cambodia participants Pass on the Gift® of chickens during an April 2013 ceremony. Photo by Toeng Rothy, Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation Officer, Heifer Cambodia.

Armenian YES! Youth Clubs gathered to celebrate the past year’s activities during the 10th Youth Parliament General Assembly, April 26-27, 2013. Thirty clubs shared about their projects, which were mostly focused on civic participation and responsibility, and the success of their small businesses. Vardouhi Torosyan, a 13-year-old jewelry-making business owner, said she was able to pass on her seed money of $100 to another club member so he could also start a business.

Heifer China project participants joyfully celebrate after a POG with a Tibetan Guozhuang (bonfire) dance. Photo by Droma Sangmo, Tibet Regional Project Manager, Heifer China

Heifer China participants prepare to celebrate after a POG ceremony with a Tibetan Guozhuang (bonfire) dance. Photo by Droma Sangmo, Tibet Regional Project Manager, Heifer China

Beneath snowy mountain peaks, farmers in Tibet applauded each other during a wintry April POG. Participants from Dan Nu, Xue Ba and Zhi Ba villages passed on a monetary fund worth about $37,342 to Xu Ba village. Three candidates were distinguished among their community for modeling exceptional behavior and a traditional Tibetan Guozhuang (bonfire) dance ended the celebration.

Learn how you can help Pass on the Gift®

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