A Four-Footed Attack Against Hunger
Each month Southeastern sets aside funds to be used in support of the Heifer
Project.
Good News....We just bought a Knitting Basket!
A Midwestern farmer named Dan West was ladling out rations
of milk to hungry children during the Spanish Civil War when it hit him.
These children don’t need a cup, they need a cow.
West, who was serving as a Church of the Brethren relief
worker, was forced to decide who would receive the limited rations and who
wouldn’t – literally, who would live and who would die. This kind of aid, he
knew, would never be enough.
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, going to families whose malnourished children
had never even tasted milk.
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. That’s because each
family receiving a heifer agrees to “pass on the gift” and donate the female
offspring to another family, so that the gift of food is never-ending.
This simple idea of giving families a source of food rather
than short-term relief caught on and has continued for almost 60 years. As a
result, millions of families in 115 countries are experiencing better health,
more income and the joy of helping others.
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