Tag Archives: gift catalog

Heifer International Gifts Make Unique Mother’s Day Presents

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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.

 

This Easter, Gift Different with Heifer

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Are you gearing up to fill someone’s Easter basket with candies and other treats? This Easter, consider putting eggs in someone else’s basket and “hatch hope” for a family in need.

Heifer’s infographic illustrates the multiplying power of something as simple as a flock of chicks.

Easter gift infographic - Heifer International

Heifer International’s gifts – at Easter or any time – provide new hope and new life for families in need.

Give different. Give Heifer.

Pack Their Easter Basket With a Special Treat

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This Easter, Heifer is offering families a unique twist on the usual Easter basket goodies of chocolate and plastic eggs – a gift that will change lives. Think about a donation of a flock of chicks, a trio of bunnies or little lamb to love for a family in need — gifts that will bring joy and also lift a family out of poverty.

Easter donations benefit Heifer International participantsTake, for example, the story of Teju Thapa, a remarkable woman from a remote village in Nepal. She was the recipient of two nanny (female) goats and a billy (male) goat.  In a very short time those three have multiplied into 13 healthy goats. In addition to selling the goat milk she uses the manure and turns it into organic fertilizer for her gardens and fruit trees.

Heifer livestock donations are a unique and heartfelt way to honor the Easter spirit of sharing and caring. Each animal, along with extensive training, is donated to a family in need, providing them with 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.

See how you can pack an Easter basket with a special treat this year.

Camels: An Extreme Animal Makes an Extreme Gift

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The land where Heifer International works in northern Tanzania is so parched in the dry season that dust devils assault the landscape. This is where camels can become lifesavers, as one man discovered.Dusty dry season in northern Tanzania

Elijah Lemayan Sokino joined a Heifer International camel project ten years ago designed to deal with the effects of periodic drought in the area. His family, like other Masai, depended on goats and cattle for their livelihood, but in years when the rains didn’t come, the cattle died. For the semi-nomadic people, this was distressing and perilous.

Mr. Camel

 

Even though the new camels were big and unfamiliar, Elijah stuck with them. He learned to love them. When drought struck again a few years later, families who had dismissed the animals returned to him, seeing that the camels survived when their own cattle did not. Worried they would starve, Elijah redistributed his camels to them.

Now, the family’s camels produce milk that sells for a good price in nearby towns, and people in the area call Elijah “Mr. Camel.”

You can help other families get this kind of independence with the gift of a camel.

Some things you may not know about these amazing creatures:

Camel in Tanzania
Camels can eat almost anything
  • Camels can survive in environments with very little water and can eat vegetation other animals can’t.
  • Camels can drink up to 25 gallons of water at a time.
  • Camel’s milk has three times as much Vitamin C as cow’s milk, and is rich in iron, unsaturated fatty acids and B vitamins.
  • Camel hair can be woven into rugs and tents, and their manure can be burned for fuel.
  • There are about ten times as many Dromedary camels (the ones with one hump) as Bactrian (with two humps), and most of them live in the Horn of Africa or Middle East.
  • Camels have been called the “ships of the desert” for their ability to carry large loads across the sand.

You can give a gift unlike any other this holiday with a Heifer International camel.

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? Check out our entire online Gift Catalog.

Thankful for Our Loyal Donors

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Heifer supporters no doubt have already received this year’s version of The Most Important Gift Catalog in the World in the mail or have visited the catalog online to begin to choose alternative holiday gifts such as heifers, goats, tree seedlings and honeybees to send to families in need around the world.

The first issue of World Ark in 1994 celebrated Heifer's 50th anniversary.

This year, new offerings to better serve our participants include biogas stoves to improve health and preserve the environment, an education for a bright young girl, an investment to help participants launch a small business or the simple yet vital gift of clean drinking water.

Innovation has always been a part of Heifer’s history. Did you know that Heifer’s gift catalog is more than 45 years old, with the first versions of an alternative gift catalog emerging in 1966? Many organizations have since copied our catalogs, but it’s easy to identify the original, labeled The Most Important Gift Catalog in the World.

World Ark magazine, which includes the gift catalog, has been around since 1994, with previous incarnations going back to the mid-1970s. This holiday season, we are so thankful for our loyal donors who return year after year to honor family, friends and co-workers with life-giving gifts of prosperity and health to be shared far and wide.

Stay tuned this holiday season for the announcement of more exciting innovations at Heifer International that aim to help us share Heifer’s unique approach to ending hunger and poverty in exciting new ways.

Thank you for keeping Heifer families around the world in mind this year as you embrace the spirit of the giving season.

Holiday Shopping Madness Gives Way to #GivingTuesday

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Holiday shopping is probably the last thing on your mind right now, in mid-September, although some stores are already setting out their Christmas displays while temperatures linger in the 80s.

As the retailers set their sights on consumer dollars, a group of first-class charities is hoping to change the conversation about holiday spending. They’re proposing a counterpart to Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and they’re calling it Giving Tuesday.

Giving Tuesday

Heifer International knows a little something about making holiday shopping more meaningful. Heifer receives the bulk of its contributions through its catalog of animal gifts, and many of those gifts come in the holiday season, when people are searching for a present that actually reflects their values.

Donate ChicksThe people who choose to direct their holiday dollars toward Heifer International gifts, rather than a video game system or an expensive handbag, make a huge difference to thousands of struggling families. The animals provide nutrition, yes, but more importantly they serve as a sort of small business that will be perpetuated and bring the family into self-reliance.

Giving Tuesday will be celebrated on the first Tuesday after Thanksgiving, which this year is Nov. 27, 2012. Nonprofits like the American Red Cross, Kiva, and the UN Foundation are honoring the day as the kickoff to the season of giving.

Heifer thinks this sounds like an idea whose time has come.

Tell us in the comments box below how you plan to make your holiday shopping this year more meaningful.