It's been a great and busy 2012 at Heifer International, and we've been glad to share a lot of it on the Heifer Blog. Here's a roundup of some of the highlights and major events from the year.

In the Field

We reported on a huge livestock distribution of sheep, goats and chickens to reach 5,500 families in Senegal.

We told you about progress with our largest goat project to date in Nepal.

We updated on progress being made in our Haiti REACH project.

Our own Kelly MacNeil climbed Mount Kilimanjaro with Elanco staff and Heifer supporters to raise funds for Heifer International.

We opened a new Program Office in Bangladesh.

Series

Heifer President and CEO wrote on many topics from his travels with Heifer to the role of women in development.

We brought you updates from families in our Asia/South Pacific project area, demonstrating the changes over time families make with assistance from Heifer.

We highlighted unique fundraisers and surprising mentions of Heifer International, showing just how diverse and creative our Heifer supporters are.

We shared stories from Heifer projects around the world in our From the Field series.

We brought you fun and educational activities to do at home, as well as ideas for how you can change the world in your own ways.

Through our series, In Context, we brought you greater insight into the countries where Heifer works and some of the issues involved in international community development.

We created and shared some awesome infographics, aka Heifergraphics.

Heifer's Heart introduced you to some of our fantastic Heifer staff.

Events and Observances

We celebrated International Women's Day by highlighting some of our most extraordinary and inspiring women participants.

Heifer volunteers around the U.S. participated in our Spring Into Action events.

CEO Pierre Ferrari and other Heifer staff participated in One Day Without Shoes.

Flat Heifer was born.

We launched a cool new website for our Read to Feed program.

Heifer hosted its first-ever Beyond Hunger event in Los Angeles.

We participated in World Food Day 2012 with a series of blog posts.

We participated in the first-ever Giving Tuesday.

We hosted our first-ever sustainability and corporate social responsibility summit.

We welcomed Club de Madrid members, and Pierre Ferrari spoke of the importance of empowering women farmers.

Praise and Support for Heifer's Work

Archbishop Desmond Tutu endorsed Heifer's Read to Feed program in South Africa.

Our Uganda Biogas project won the Best Practice Award from InterAction.

Heifer was awarded the 2012 Kiwanis World Service Medal.

Heifer received $8.5 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to extend our East Africa Dairy Development program.

Chef Patricia Yeo competed on Top Chef Masters and won $16,000 on behalf of Heifer.

Pierre Ferrari spoke at the 2012 World Food Prize.

Pierre Ferrari spoke at the International Dairy Federation's World Dairy Summit 2012 in South Africa.

Heifer International's World Ark magazine became the first nonprofit magazine available on tablets and was featured as Adobe's "App of the Week."

We've shared with you the story of fundraising superstar, Ryan Bell, who at age 12 has surpassed his original goal of raising $25,000 and wants to raise more.

Heifer 12x12 blogger Betty Londergan completed her quest of visiting Heifer projects around the world every month in 2012.

Natural Disasters

We distributed food to 1,101 Cambodian families (both Heifer participants and non-participants) suffering from flood damage that affected at least 967 Heifer project families.

Uganda suffered damaging mudslides.

The United States suffered a record-breaking drought.

The Sahel faced drought and food shortages.

Heifer Haiti staff and participants rode out Tropical Storm Isaac.

Hurricane Sandy did significant damage in Haiti.

Typhoon Bopha caused great damage for Heifer Philippines participant families.

I want to personally thank our readers for following us this year, and I hope you'll stay with us for 2013. If you haven't already, subscribe to our RSS feed. And if you've got friends you think would like to know more about Heifer's work, please share this post on Facebook, Twitter or however you prefer.

Best wishes for a happy and prosperous 2013!