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I bet this is a gift idea you didn’t think about for this holiday season! Yet, it could be one of the most awesome gifts you could offer this year!

All the Michael Jackson fans know about Louie the llama. He may not be as iconic as Bubbles the chimp, but everybody knows Michael had a llama. Louie was just a pet for Michael, but for some people in the world, a llama is a true blessing.

And it’s not just true for llamas but for a lot of other animals too!

In many parts of the world, people who are the most vulnerable to hunger are mostly farmers. They try to grow their own food, yet they don’t manage to get enough to eat. That’s because a lot of problems may prevent them from getting successful harvests every year: droughts, health problems, lack of training, no farm machinery… When it becomes too difficult, they may leave the countryside and move to big cities, but life is not always easier or safer there. And when many people quit farming in the same country, then it’s the whole population that becomes more vulnerable to hunger and more dependant of foreign countries for food.

For these farmers, a simple animal can be a real treasure and help them become self-reliant.

A cow can provide enough milk every morning for a family to drink and the protein-rick milk will help the children stay healthy. Families can sell the surplus of milk or dairy products to pay for school, healthcare and clothes. Cows and oxen can be used to plow fields and to help farmers grow much more food, and the manure can be used to fertilize fields, improving crops even more – and even to make fuel.

Cows, goats, sheep, pigs, chicks, geese or llamas, they can all bring immeasurable benefits to struggling families.

Llamas are a blessing to families with limited pasture land because they can eat the scrub vegetation that other domesticated animals won’t eat. Llama droppings help fertilize soil and they provide families with transportation and wool that can be weaved into warm clothing to wear or sell.

So this Christmas, why not offering a llama… or a goat, a sheep or maybe a flock of chicks to a family in need at the other side of the globe?

With Heifer International, it’s possible to do that. While many organizations promise to end world hunger by providing cups of foods to people who suffer from famine, this non-profit organization made the choice to work with local communities and to donate animals instead in order to help them become more self-reliant and less vulnerable to hunger. An animal helps improving families situations both on the short and the long run.

With each animal donated come training and education programs, help to build or adapt farms to animal breeding, equipments, as well as a technical and veterinary follow-up.

And with the “Pass On The Gift” program, farmers who take part in Heifer International projects agree to share the offspring of gift animals with others in need, thus helping lift whole communities out of poverty around the world.

So if you offer one goat or llama today, you won’t just help one family, you’ll create a vertuous circle which will help many families or even an entire village. You didn’t think you could do so much all by yourself, did you?

In this video, you’ll be able to see the positive impact of your gift thanks to the “Pass On The Gift” program.

Heifer International allows you to donate for a full animal or to donate for animal shares. That means it would take 8 persons who pay for a $20 share to offer a llama to a family in Latin America, or 12 persons paying for a $10 share to offer a sheep or a goat to someone in Asia, Africa or Eastern Europe. And if you want to offer a whole gift by yourself, you can easily buy a flock of chicks, ducks and geese for only $20 and provide families with meat and eggs for the years to come!

Do you think we can find enough fans to offer a llama or a goat or a few flocks of chicks to one or several families somewhere in the world for this holiday season? These presents will sure bring smiles on a lot of children’s faces when they get them, and I’m sure this would make Michael smile too.

To donate, please follow this link and make your choice:

https://secure.heifer.org/c.edJRKQNiFiG/b.488975/site/apps/ka/ec/store.asp?StoreId=10677

This link will allow me to see in real time how much we managed to raise. I’ll update this post regularly to let you know!

If you can’t donate but really would like to help reach us that goal, please spread the word! Use the retweet button at the top of this post, post a link to Facebook or copy this post on Michael Jackson message boards. You could help me a lot my doing that!

Thank you and have a merry Christmas and a happy New Year!

PS: I just found this video on YouTube and I think it pretty much sums up what I said in this blog post LOL!

PS 2: We are now after Christmas, but you can still help! The project is extended until January 31st!

Goal to reach: raising enough money to donate a goat or a llama to a family. If 10 people each donate $10, we’ll reach the goal! So please help us!

Also, please read this article about a 7 year old girl who decided to ask people to donate to Heifer International instead of buying her Christmas presents… You can still help her!

Seven Year Old Girl Raises Money For Heifer International

by ERICA LIEPMANN, Causecast Associate Editor

Alyssa Ripley is your average seven year old girl, attending second grade in her hometown of Proctorsville, Vermont. Except this year, when Christmas came around, instead of toys, Alyssa’s Christmas wish list included chicks, goats and even water buffalo. That’s because Alyssa asked friends and family to make a donation to Heifer International in lieu of buying her Christmas gifts. Heifer is a nonprofit organization working to alleviate poverty around the globe by giving animals to people in need, thereby providing them with access to a steady income, food, clothing and more.

So far, Alyssa has raised over $700 for Heifer – but she won’t stop there. She has set her sights on raising $8,000 for the organization, which includes the elusive $5,000 Gift Ark.

How you can help Alyssa reach her goal:

Head over to Alyssa’s fundraising page on the Heifer International website. Whether you’ve only got a few dollars to spare or are ready to make a sizable contribution, Alyssa will surely be happy to edge that much closer to her $8,000 goal.

[Source: Causecast]

You can also read another article about Alyssa’s project on the Rutland Herald website.

So if you feel like making a 7 year old girl happy even after Christmas, go to Alyssa’s fundraising page instead of mine, and help her reach her goal! So far, she raised $871.00!