Heifer International’s History

“These children don’t need a cup, they need a cow.”

West, who was volunteering as a Church of the Brethren relief worker, was forced to decide who would receive the limited rations and who wouldn’t – literally deciding who would live and who would die, based on who was healthy enough to survive. This kind of aid, he knew, would never be enough. He knew that most people only needed a hand-up to become self reliant for food and income.

So West returned home to form Heifers for Relief, dedicated to ending hunger permanently by providing families with livestock and training so that they “could be spared the indignity of depending on others to feed their children.”

In 1944, the first shipment of 17 heifers left York, Pennsylvania for Puerto Rico and went to families whose malnourished children had never even tasted milk. Soon after, Heifer helped provide livestock to war-ravaged Europe and Japan. Today, Heifer no longer ships livestock but instead acquires animals as close to the point of destination as possible, thus stimulating local economies and insuring animal adaptability to its chosen environment.

Why heifers? These are young cows that haven’t yet given birth – making them perfect not only for supplying a continued source of milk, but also for supplying a continued source of support. This simple idea of giving families a source of food and income rather than short-term relief caught on and has continued for 60 years. As a result, millions of families in more than 125 countries are experiencing better health, more income and the joy of helping others.