Heifer International at Christmas

If your kids or grandkids are old enough to be socially conscious, a gift from Heifer International could be your last-minute solution to the Christmas quandry. Just Google it if you've never visited their Web site, and find out how you can send a gift of baby chicks or ducks or geese, or even bees to a deserving family in Africa or another needy area.

Of course, you could send a heifer! Or a water buffalo. Or a share of a water buffalo.

Here is how it works. Heifer International will arrange to send baby chicks, feed for them, and someone to teach a family how to raise the chicks, how to trade or sell the eggs in their village and on up to raising and then eating or trading the grown chickens. It is possible to save an entire village with just a few gifts of baby chicks. Bees arrive with a hive and more in-person instruction; they not only provide honey, they pollinate surrounding crops.

Heifer International sends you beautiful fold-out cards to send along to the person in whose name the gift will be presented. At this late date, you would probably want to print out the cards from their site. It is also possible to have Heifer International send an e-mail to your recipient. They get very, very busy this time of year, so you might want to Bookmark the site and use it for a birthday gift. School classes sometimes raise funds so the entire class can send a significant animal to a village.

What a powerful way to show youngsters that they CAN make a difference in the world.