Dr. Bill Beck from Modesto came to speak in Gilroy this past
Sunday in honor of Janice and Charles Krahenbuhl’s 50th wedding
anniversary celebration. The title of his talk was
”
Love Made Real,
”
and his audience included a diverse mixture of Gilroyans, from
Rucker staff to DAR members, retired teachers, former city
planners, a former mayor, and a piano tuner who once tuned the
piano for
”
Prairie Home Companion.
”
Dr. Bill Beck from Modesto came to speak in Gilroy this past Sunday in honor of Janice and Charles Krahenbuhl’s 50th wedding anniversary celebration. The title of his talk was “Love Made Real,” and his audience included a diverse mixture of Gilroyans, from Rucker staff to DAR members, retired teachers, former city planners, a former mayor, and a piano tuner who once tuned the piano for “Prairie Home Companion.”
The majority of Dr. Beck’s professional life has been spent as the director of Heifer Project International, which is dedicated to alleviating world hunger through providing livestock to help small farmers feed their families and care for the earth.
The Krahenbuhls asked that in lieu of anniversary gifts, friends and family donate to the Heifer Project. Dr. Beck spoke of the five M’s of Heifer: milk, meat, money, meaning, and manure. Since 1944, Heifer has helped seven million families in more than 125 countries improve their quality of life and become more self-reliant. Heifer requires recipients to “pass on the gift” by sharing training, skills, and the offspring of their livestock to others in need.
For instance, imagine the impact on an impoverished member of the Navajo Nation to not only be able to provide for his own family, but then to also gain the ability to give a hand to help another family out of poverty.
Heifer is also careful to provide animals that fit the culture and environment in which they are being placed, which means alpacas would be sent to Peru, while a more traditional species of sheep would be sent to a Navajo family.
Participants also learn to protect the long-term productivity of their communities by learning how to improve crop yields, caring for the forests, terracing hillside farms, and monitoring water quality.
Despite the great technological advances of the last century, hunger still grips much of the world’s population. According to the United Nations, 100,000 people die every day from hunger-related causes and millions more are undernourished. Heifer has built hands on learning centers in Arkansas, California, and Massachusetts which educate people about how each of us can be a part of the solution.
Dr. Beck told the inspiring story of how a goat made a difference for Beatrice Biira, a young woman growing up in one of the poorest families in Uganda. It was all thanks to a goat from Heifer (which provides as much as four quarts of milk a day and can produce twins or triplets) that Beatrice was able to realize her yearning desire to attend school.
With the sale of milk from the goat, she was finally able to begin classes at age 10, and went on to win scholarships to prep school. Now 19, she is a freshman at Connecticut College, and recently completed an internship with Senator Hilary Rodham Clinton.
When he was working in Peru, a woman came up to talk to Dr. Beck whose life had been changed by the ownership of a water buffalo. She presented Dr. Beck with an envelope. “We’ve been saving a little rice aside each evening,” she said of her women’s group, “Please give it to a village in another country.”
When he opened it, Dr. Beck found that the envelope contained $15.00. That $15 was used to start a goose project in a village in China, which helped improve the health of everyone there. Heifer gifts just keep on being passed on to others.
A chicken supplies up to 200 eggs a year, and one egg supplies the daily protein needed by a small child. A donation of $20 provides a flock of chicks. For $30, honey bees provide honey and pollination, which greatly improves crop yields.
The Krahenbuhls’ goal is to provide an entire heifer for $500 with their anniversary donations. I’ve no doubt they’ll reach their goal. To make a donation, go to www.heifer.org, or send it to Heifer International, P.O. Box 1692, Merrifield, VA, 22116-1692.
