Heifer International. I support this organization, please give them a look

[pinto]

http://www.heifer.org/site/c.edJRKQNiFiG/b.183217/

Heifer's Mission to End Hunger

Heifer envisions…

A world of communities living together in peace and equitably sharing the resources of a healthy planet.

Heifer’s mission is…

To work with communities to end hunger and poverty and to care for the earth.

Heifer's strategy is…

To “pass on the gift.” As people share their animals’ offspring with others – along with their knowledge, resources, and skills – an expanding network of hope, dignity, and self-reliance is created that reaches around the globe.

Heifer’s History

This simple idea of giving families a source of food rather than short-term relief caught on and has continued for over 60 years. Today, millions of families in 128 countries have been given the gifts of self-reliance and hope.

Read more about Heifer’s History.

http://www.heifer.org/Inside_Heifer/Mission_and_History/Our_History.shtml

[Critters2]

1. Not a fan, personally

They encourage cultures which eat little meat to move to a meat-based diet, which has serious consequences for the environment. Not a good thing.

[pinto]

4. See your point. I usually "sponsor" a wool llama for Christmas gifts.

[Critters2]

5. Which is okay, in cultures where llamas are indigenous

but most such places don't need the help.

The problem is when they teach people with grain-based diets to start eating beef, etc.

[pinto]

6. I see your point. The llamas I sponsor go to Peru, Ecuador,

Andean families.

[Critters2]

That seems cool

I visited a HPI farm in Africa, in an area with a grain-based indigenous diet. They were teaching people to raise beef cattle--a disaster waiting to happen!

[pinto]

10. Yeah. Beef cattle aren't a "solution" there.They sponsor laying chickens.

That would seem to fit with a grain economy.

(edit to make sense)

[eShirl]

16. "beef cattle" can give lots of milk.

just sayin'

[silverweb]

8. Not necessarily.

There are giving options which don't encourage meat eating. Have you browsed the _catalog_? You can give goats, which are used for milk not meat, chickens for eggs, ducks, honeybees, trees, and much more.

Why write off an entire very practical, worthwhile organization and all the good they do because you don't agree with one part of their program? That's just counterproductive.

[kestrel91316]

12. It may be counterproductive, but what do you expect from some of

the radical vegan/animal rights crowd???

I'm surprised they haven't found some reason to bitch about enslavement of the trees.........

[flvegan]

14. "Radical vegan/animal rights crowd"

Back your shit up. I don't see where the post you refer to suggests anything radical. Your broad brush is no different than the 33% that still support dipshit.

[silverweb]

15. Just hoping for a little moderation.

I'm a vegetarian, too, although not vegan. I fully understand the moral and environmental objections to raising beef cattle, as well as industrial breeding of chickens, pigs, etc, for meat and I concur.

My point is just that it's foolish to throw the baby out with the bath water.

[kestrel91316]

20. Thank you. Well put. After all, the HI animals are going to FAMILY FARMS

in third world countries, not INDUSTRIAL AGRICULTURAL FACTORIES in the US. We need to support family farms and humane animal husbandry wherever we can.

[annabanana]

2. This is a worth organization...

Enterprising High Schoolers can organise "cow fund" drives for community service..

[cmd]

3. My daughter gave me a Heifer basket for Mother's Day

This was the same week she won a thousand dollars at a food bank fund raising raffle and gave it back to the food bank. I'm so proud of that girl!

[Blue_In_AK]

7. My mom and dad supported this organization

for years and years before they passed away. Every year at Christmas we kids and the grandchildren would receive a little card stating that a share of a cow, a goat, or some chickens had been donated in our name.

[Fridays Child]

9. OLLEP was just talking to Sanjay Gupta about it, on CNN.

Sounds like a wonderful program to me. K&R!

[sorrybushisfromtexas]

13. Heifer

It is my wife's favorite gift each year. My daughter sponsors, chickens, ducks, and goats in her name. She is very appreciative.
The gift you give is given by the recipient to others.

[Fridays Child]

17. Very cool way of contributing.

[eShirl]

11. There is a fund-raiser for Heifer International in the game-world I play

Second Life. I just donated 19,000 in game-money to it last week, which with the current exchange rate is about $62 in real US dollars. Makes me feel like my game-playing time isn't a total waste.!

[DURHAM D]

18. Every three years (for many years) now I have given a

donation at Christmas in the names of the children in my family. My nieces and nephews could not wait to figure out which crop or animal to send to what country - they learned more geography from Heifer than they learned in school and deciding to send a couple of goats to one village or a flock of geese to several was something they spent many hours trying to decide.

Now it just goes into a general fund but the kids always say it is their favorite Christmas present - much better than a gift card from Best Buy, etc.

This past Christmas the kids had a meeting and then asked me to give in their name every year to the Project and stop with the regular presents. I am so proud of all of them. They donate themselves and talk it up to anyone who will listen.

Obviously, I am a big fan for many reasons.

[jwirr]

19. Having been raised on a 40 acre farm in Iowa I see this as a

good organization. While I agree that we should not promote an "American-like" diet, there are benefits to animals that go beyond what you eat. The milk, eggs and meat come second to the value of the natural fertilizer - manure - that these animals provide for fields/gardens. I remember riding out into the fields on the front of the manure spreader each evening after the barns had been cleaned out to fertilize some field. This was a non-oil based source of fertilizer that was highly affordable to all small farmers.

[LeftyMom]

21. Doesn't make much sense to me.

First of all, there's already more than enough food out there to feed the world, so hunger charities that don't address underlying issues of dysfunction in distribution are band-aids on cancer.

Second, excluding the few areas (which outside of the industrial world tend to be sparsely populated) where a plant-based diet can't be supported by the local environment, encouraging further animal agriculture is not a responsible thing to do. Both human health and the health of the planet are negatively impacted by flesh-consuming diets. While Heifer does offer some seed and other more sustainable solutions, as their name suggests the focus is on animal agriculture, which is neither healthy nor sustainable.

Third, there is a certain racist and culturally imperialist element to this. First, in the selection of animals for food. One of Heifers gifts, as their name suggests, is that of a dairy cow. Now most of the world's people can not digest cow's milk- no surprise, no other animal consumes the milk of another so this behavior is an evolutionary oddity- and the ability to do so well is almost exclusively a mutation confined to Northern Europeans. However the attitude in the US and other places largely descended from people with that mutation is that this is a essential food for health of women and children. Science tells us that this is not the case, that it is in fact a potent allergen, and that the concentrated animal protein changes blood chemistry and leeches calcium deposits from the bones. Second, Heifer is a religious charity. Religious charities operating in the developing world aim to proselytize the poorest and least resistant populations, often with the implied (or outright stated in some cases, such as that of Mother Theresa's operation in Calcutta) suggestion that conversion is a requirement for aid or a way to get more help. As such, I'm extremely wary of religiously-motivated charities except in cases where their track record of respect for their beneficiaries is clearly established, as with Habitat for Humanity. Giving people a little food in exchange for changing a part of their culture seems like a poor trade.

I'd keep my money and time with more forward thinking organizations that have a greater focus on environmental responsibility and addressing the inequities in food distribution that cause hunger. Food Not Bombs is a good option, in my opinion. Here's a link to some other organizations addressing hunger without animal exploitation: http://episcoveg.weblogger.com/2005/01/28?print-friendly=true

PS As an aside, Heifer International is also a partner in junk science. They sponsored, together with the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, a study intended to compare the healthfulness of animal and plant based diets in children. Their animal consuming population was first world children. The veg population? Third world children subsisting on very small quantities of rice and beans from hunger relief organizations. Needless to say, when you compare well fed children with access to health care to half-starved kids with none, the first world kids win out. NCBA and it's membership used this deeply and intentionally flawed study to promote an animal-based diet as the only healthy answer to child nutrition while Heifer uses it to promote the need for animal products in third world children's diets, and thus the need to donate to Heifer. I'm certainly not about to donate to an organization that colludes with industry in the creation of mutually advantageous junk science.

PPS Better analysis of problems with Heifer (and a few more examples of a disrespect for truth on their part) here: http://www.all-creatures.org/articles/heifer-ffecp.html and here: http://www.all-creatures.org/articles/heifer-info.html