This is the 5th edition of the “Ordinary People, Extraordinary Decisions” series where we highlight another person who embodies the statement: “Change the way you think, and you can change the world.” View the entire series here.
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My colleague Lizzie is getting married and as a newlywed still recovering from my wedding planning addiction, I love hearing the details of her upcoming nuptials. When I asked her what she plans to give away as wedding favors, I was a bit surprised. “Pigs!” she exclaimed. The dead silence on my end of the phone was probably a cue that I needed more information. “We’re making a donation to Heifer.org in our guests’ names.”
Giving Pigs as wedding favors. I must have missed that idea in the wedding magazines. I needed to dig further.
Dan West, founder of Heifer International, was a farmer from Ohio who volunteered time doing relief work through his church. He struggled with the cycle of receiving food staples sent by relief organizations and rationing them out to desperate and needy families. Those families were infinitely grateful, but had to depend on the constant support of relief organizations with limited resources. The support was a crutch, not a solution.
Dan followed the proverb “Feed a man a fish and you have fed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you have fed him for a lifetime.” He imagined a way of helping these families support themselves. In his first project through Heifers for Relief, he sent 17 heifers to selected families and coined the phrase “Give not a cup, but a cow.”
Heifers for Relief eventually became Heifer International which provides life-sustaining animals and plants to families to end the cycle of dependence.
Here’s how it works (from Wikipedia):
Heifer International works to ensure that the gift of each animal will eventually help an entire community to become self-sustaining. Animals such as goats, water buffalo and camels are “seven M” animals: they provide meat, milk, muscle, manure, money, materials and motivation. Once its immediate needs have been met, a family is free to sell any excess at market. Heifer International provides a breeding animal along with the gift animal so that it can produce offspring. Participating families are required to “pass on the gift”, that is: they must give at least one of the female offspring to a neighbor who has undergone Heifer’s training. In time, that neighbor will pass along one of the offspring of its animal, and so on.
Each gift of a rabbit, llama, duck, or goose, provides several families with much needed life-sustaining support. But the gift is so much more. The true gift is empowerment, self-reliance, , entrepreneurship, education, hope, and peace. A single heifer can significantly improve the lives of dozens of people.
Dan West, this “Ordinary Person” who farmed in the Midwest, changed the way he thought about feeding a family, and today Heifer International has impacted the lives of 70.5 Million people in over 100 countries. Heifer International is Changing the World- one $20 flock of geese at a time. To donate or learn more, visit Heifer.org.
How did you change the world today?
Editor’s Note: Breanne Harris is the Solutions Architect for Pearson TalentLens. She works with customers to design selection and development plans that incorporate critical thinking assessments and training. She has a Master’s degree in Organizational Psychology and has experience in recruiting, training, and HR consulting. She is the chief blogger for Critical Thinkers and occasionally posts at ThinkWatson. Connect with her on LinkedIn and Twitter for more of her thoughts.
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