Heifer International Gifts Make Unique Mother’s Day Presents

Mother’s Day is approaching, and that means it’s time to show our mothers and grandmothers our appreciation for the care they’ve given us. Many people find that a Heifer donation is a very special gift, especially since it will empower mothers around the world trying to support their families.

Mother's Day gift AltGift

Mothers everywhere want what is best for their children. That’s why it’s important to honor our moms by extending greater opportunities to women struggling to get by. Simple changes can have huge impacts; women in the developing world could regain 200 million work hours every day if they all had access to clean water in their homes.

Heifer International Mother’s Day gifts like of a flock of chicks, clean water or a healthy home can bring transformative benefits for a family in need. Faith Onyango’s family, for example, was trapped in crushing poverty in a Kenyan village with her husband and three children before Heifer arrived. She was struggling to feed her children and their home was a crumbling mud brick hut.

But then, because of an individual’s donation, Faith received a heifer and training in organic farming from Heifer International. The cow’s manure helped increase the family’s corn harvest fourfold. With their new earnings, Faith sends her children to school and has built a new, safe house. She has now Passed on the Gift of her cow’s first calf to a neighbor.

Mother's Day gift bee

Heifer International provides Mother’s Day gift honor cards that explain to gift recipients the impact a gift of livestock can have for a family in need.

With $1.9 billion spent on Mother’s Day flowers each year, Heifer International believes that donations to help families around the globe are the most meaningful – and impactful – Mother’s Day gifts available.

 

Happy Valentine’s Day from Heifer International!

Happy Valentine’s Day! Some say love is the universal language, and I’d have to agree. It’s not too late to spread some love with a thoughtful Valentine’s Day gift from Heifer International. Check out our special selection here.

Enjoy some love-ly Heifer photos from around the world!

Happy Valentine's Day.

Photo by Christian DeVries, courtesy of Heifer International.

Happy Valentine's Day.

Photo by Geoff Oliver Bugbee, courtesy of Heifer International.

Happy Valentine's Day.

Photo by Jake Lyell, courtesy of Heifer International.

Happy Valentine's Day.

Photo by Russell Powell, courtesy of Heifer International.

Did you give or receive an alternative gift for Valentine’s Day this year? Tell us about it in the comments section below!

Heifer’s Valentine’s Day Gift Ideas Show Real Heart

This Valentine’s Day, don’t just go through the motions of gift-giving – get a special Valentine’s gift that will benefit others long after the heart-shaped chocolates are consumed. The gift of a flock of chicks, a llama or honeybees that help lift families out of poverty is the ideal present for Valentine’s Day.

Heifer International offers heartfelt and unique gifts for Valentine’s Day that celebrate a person’s sweet side. Each animal, along with extensive training, is given to a family in need, providing better nutrition and marketable products. As the animals grow and reproduce, the family’s livelihood improves; and they become benefactors themselves when they fulfill the commitment to Pass on the Gift of their animal’s offspring to another family.

Heifer Valentine’s Day gifts are touching and impactful. For example, see the changes in the small village of Carromata in the Philippines, which was bogged down in illiteracy, poverty and malnutrition after a new dam altered the river that had been its lifeblood. Heifer International’s LOVE project (“Life-giving Offerings and Values-enrichment for Empowerment”) provided water buffalos, pigs, chickens, vegetable seeds and fruit tree seedlings to families there, as well as values-based and technical skills trainings.

Valentines Day Gift Ideas

Canoto Budong  manually strips his Abaca to get the fibers. Photo courtesy of Heifer International.

Now, LOVE participant Canoto Bodong happily says sweet potatoes, taro and cassava are improving his family’s diet, and project families are growing abaca plants, whose fiber is valued by paper makers and the automotive industry. The community plans to set up its own fiber-stripping machine to expand its production.

Valentines Day gift ideas.

Children in Carromata play as Abaca fibers dry along the river bank of Tago. Photo courtesy of Heifer International.

Heifer International’s Valentine’s Day infographic shows that 80 percent of women have received a gift with no thought behind it, according to a recent survey. So instead of expensive but impersonal chocolates, baubles, or flowers that wilt all too soon, this Valentine’s Day give something that will honor him or her – a Heifer International gift that spreads the wonderful feeling of making a difference.

Check out our special selection of Valentine’s Day gift ideas to find the right gift for your sweetheart.

Quit Giving the Same Valentine’s Day Fluff

Want to think outside the heart-shaped box this Valentine’s Day? Looking for free Valentine’s Day printables? Look no further than Heifer International! Instead of shelling out  $30 for a box of cavity-inducing chocolates, why not give the gift of bees? Now that’s sweet! Don’t want to spend three hours crafting something for your kid’s preschool teachers? Give them a trio of rabbits.

Free Valentines Day Printables

Heifergraphic courtesy of Heifer International.

Last-Minute Gifts are Meaningful with Heifer International

Still searching for the perfect last-minute gifts for the people on your list who have everything? Heifer International has a thoughtful and easy way to show you care: charitable gifts of animals and resources that will help families around the world lift themselves out of poverty.

Last-minute gifts with Heifer

Photo by David Snyder, courtesy of Heifer International.

Last-minute gifts don’t have to be hasty and impersonal if you choose to give a goat, a llama, or perhaps some chickens. These animals will to help boost a hungry family’s nutrition, and products like milk, eggs and wool can be sold for income that will pay for school and health care.

Your gift recipient gets a beautiful honor card describing the benefits of the donation made in their name, and you get the satisfaction of having given something far more meaningful than a gift card.

What to give? This!

Image courtesy of Heifer International.

Ganga Khanal in Nepal experienced the power of a Heifer International gift. She had been rejected by her husband after she failed to produce a son. Despite his opposition, she joined a Heifer International women’s self-help group and received goats and training. Today she helps lead a women’s cooperative and run the co-op store. Her son now says, “The future looks bright for us because of our mothers.” A gift of $72 to Heifer International can help start another women’s self-help group.

Last-minute gifts from Heifer International.

Photo by Jake Lyell, courtesy of Heifer International.

Heifer International’s “Most Important Gift Catalog in the World” is full of life-changing animals, and premiering this 2012 season, we have exciting new gifts like biogas stoves, clean water, and the gift of education for a young girl in need. With so many options, the Heifer gift catalog has everything you need to give the perfect gift.

To see the full gift catalog, visit www.heifer.org/catalog.

Treat Them to Trees

This time of year when so many of us are talking about trees — which one to buy, how does it smell, what happens if my dog eats the branches — we should all take a minute to say “thank you” to the life of a tree and the environmental protection they provide.

Trees for environmental protection

Photo by Geoff Oliver Bugbee, courtesy of Heifer International.

Trees are essential to life on Earth. Heifer recognizes their simple yet extraordinary virtues and gives many varieties of trees and saplings including acacia, fodder, forest and fruit to families in the communities where we work. And trees seedlings are Passed On to other families ensuring the sustainable cycle that’s key to Heifer’s development model.

Did you know?

  • Trees breathe out oxygen and breathe in carbon dioxide.
  • Trees hold water in the soil and moisture in the air.
  • Trees provide food and medicines for birds, animals and people.
  • Fast-growing trees put nitrogen back in the soil, serve as windbreaks and provide fodder, fencing, firewood and fruit.
  • Multi-purpose trees that families plant along the contours of hillside plots and between rows of crops can provide shade for animals and high-protein fodder.
So as a “thank you” to trees for how much they give us,  I’m gifting trees to my friends and family this holiday season. Hope they breathe a little better.

Photo courtesy of Heifer International.

This holiday season, give trees for your loved ones dedicated to environmental protection.

This post is part of our What to Give series, where we’re helping you choose the best Heifer gift for your loved ones. Read previous What to Give posts here, and subscribe to the What to Give series here.

Still don’t know what to give? Visit our full catalog page here.

Heifer at Hanukkah Begins

Heifer at Hanukkah

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hanukkah begins this evening, and we at Heifer International are excited to have Ed Asner, who played gruff but lovable Lou Grant on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and Santa Claus in “Elf,” and Mark Feuerstein, from the hit series “Royal Pains,” as the stars of our first-ever Heifer at Hanukkah campaign. Heifer at Hanukkah promotes unique Hanukkah gifts for kids that educate them about the Jewish precepts of tzedakah (charity) and olam (repair the world).

 

Learn more about Heifer at Hanukkah here.

Find Great Christmas Presents With Heifer International

It’s the time of year when many of us are scrambling to find the right Christmas presents. (It’s eighteen days away, but who’s counting?)

You can make Christmas shopping more fun, though, with our new online experience, called “Heifer International’s Christmas Wish List.” It lets you and your family explore the joy and the meaning behind gifts of animals and other resources to families in need.

Christmas Presents from Heifer

The Wish List has videos, photos from the field, fun facts and an interactive storybook for kids. It’s a great reminder that the spirit of the season is one of brotherhood, hope and generosity. Giving a Heifer International animal as a Christmas present is a truly meaningful way to honor your loved ones, since every gift helps families in poverty and hunger by providing nutrition and income-generating products.Heifer International Christmas storybook

Heifer’s Christmas Wish List is your shortcut to gift ideas that have transformative benefits for the people who receive them. You can watch a delightful “sheep’s-eye-view” video to learn about the benefits of donating a sheep, or find a special Christmas recipe from the Philippines that reinforces the importance of nutrition. You can also see the impact of Heifer International’s work with women in India, where wives are getting help with housework from their husbands for the first time.

Happy Giving Tuesday!

Giving Tuesday is Finally Here

We’ve made it through Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday. Giving Tuesday is the time to do your holiday shopping in a way that really gives back.

Giving Tuesday Infographic

A gift from Heifer International is meaningful for everyone involved. Your friends, family and colleagues alike will be honored to receive gifts from Heifer, whether they’re goat lovers or tree huggers. You’ll know that you’ve not only done something special for your recipient, but also for our global community. And the ultimate recipient – the Heifer project participant family – will reap the benefits of your gift for years to come. Best yet, that gift will keep on giving as our participants Pass on the Gift to another family in the community.

Give to Heifer today to support the real giving season’s opening day.

Give Heifer this Giving Tuesday

Photo by Geoff Bugbee, courtesy of Heifer International.

Does it surprise you that 79 percent of Americans polled would rather have a donation made in their name rather than a gift they know they’ll never use? That’s nearly 80 percent of your shopping list!

This Giving Tuesday, shop Heifer’s Online Gift Catalog for everyone on your list.

Want to figure out how much to spend?

Use Our Black Friday Savings Calculator to Turn Your Savings into Heifer Gifts