Today marks the Chinese New Year. As part of the twelve year cycle of animals, this year marks the Year of the Goat.

A few years back, a goat was featured on the TV show The West Wing in conjunction with Little Rock-based Heifer International.  For $120, an entire goat can be donated which will go to a family to help it achieve nutritional independence.  This link tells how to make a donation for part or all of a goat.  Even contributing $10 from one person can be combined with other donations to add up to $120 for a goat.  Information on other animal sponsor opportunities is available on the Heifer website.

Visitors to the Heifer Village can learn more about Heifer International.  The center features unique, hands on exhibits about the work of Heifer as well as facts about hunger, poverty, and empowerment of individuals.  It is located on Heifer International’s World Headquarters campus in downtown Little Rock next to Clinton Presidential Park.

Heifer International’s mission is to work with communities to end world hunger and poverty and to care for the Earth. Dan West was a farmer from the American Midwest and member of the Church of the Brethren who went to the front lines of the Spanish Civil War as an aid worker. His mission was to provide relief, but he soon discovered the meager single cup of milk rationed to the weary refugees once a day was not enough.

And then he had a thought: What if they had not a cup, but a cow?

That “teach a man to fish” philosophy is what drove West to found Heifer International. And now, over 70 years later, that philosophy still inspires our work to end world hunger and poverty throughout the world once and for all.