I got an email this morning from Oxfam America that was full of great ideas for holiday gifts:$40.00: Here's a gift you can tap into. Provide farmers with a much-needed system to irrigate their land. With your support for two months, four months, or a full year, you'll help farmers grow a bumper crop!Here's how it works. Oxfam America is an amazing organization that works in 26 countries around the world. When you select an item from the online catalog, it represents project goals from grants disbursed by their offices around the world. So purchasing each gift item is a contribution toward Oxfam America's many programs, not a donation to a specific project or goal. So althought it might feel more rewarding as the person who gives if you were actually giving a cow to a family, the bottom line is: donations are used where needed the most--to help people living in poverty throughout the world.
$40.00 They’re cheaper by the dozen. Who can resist these fuzzy little beauties? Your gift provides HIV/AIDS-affected households with a starter flock: a dozen chicks to produce eggs, generate income, and improve nutrition. Now that’s an eggs-ceptional gift!
$25.00 Forget the apple for the teacher; we've got a plum of a gift. School supplies—like rulers, notebooks, erasers, pencils, and pens—mean that a child will have the necessary tools for class. Everyone involved with this gift deserves a gold star!
$18.00 Baby, it's cold outside! And nothing takes the chill off like a cozy blanket—especially for those who are driven from their homes because of a natural disaster. This gift of blankets for an entire family provides both warmth and comfort.
$75.00 It's got milk and so much more! Help a family by buying a cow, and you will provide an entire economic support system. A cow provides nutritious products for a family to sell, mows the grass, and moo-ves a family toward greater opportunity.
Every year we all say how commercial and material the holidays have become. Maybe it's time we actually did something about it.
2 comments:
Great suggestion, will check it out. I am definitely on board with the idea of using Christmas to help others instead of buy more material "things" that we don't need.
I think this is a powerful and simple way to halt the rampant consumerism of our country. It's also a good way to remember how difficult the lives of other people in the world truly is.
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