Looking forward to retirement the latter part of 2008, the Daltons will have some leeway to pursue other hobbies and leisure activities, but raising goats is not one of them. The goats they purchased for $60 each through Heifer International, a charitable organization based in Arkansas, may be in one of a number of countries plagued by famine and starvation from the absence of employment, food, shelter and medical care.
The Dalton's goats will be presented to a needy family through Heifer's "Living Chain of Giving" program. The goats will provide fresh milk and, with instruction to the receiving family, the ability to harvest the goat's milk to make dairy products such as cheese and cosmetic products as sustainable income for the family. The stipulation of the Living Chain of Giving, is that the family is bound to breed the goats and to pass on its offspring to another needy family as a gift. As each family, in return, passes on their gift to another family, some entire villages can improve their living conditions.
Holy Trinity Episcopal Church is considering the purchase a water buffalo, $250, for a family in Indonesia. The family will not only have the advantage of harvesting life-saving milk for their own children, but will use the animal for plowing their own fruit and vegetable garden for their consumption as well as to sell at market, use its manure for fertilizer and fuel for fire, and to rent the animal to other farmers who do not own a water buffalo for plowing. The cost of the water buffalo to be purchased and delivered in Indonesia is only $250.
Heifer also supports needy populations in the United States, as well, that are under-funded by other government programs. The goal of the agricultural and enterprise initiatives is to provide nourishing food products for the receiving family and to provide that family with the knowledge and means to market their produce or animal for income.
A similar program, if initiated in Fannin County, would be a worthwhile initiative to help some of the several hundred families who frequent the Fannin Ministerial Food Bank solely supported by only a handful of churches in the area. Holy Trinity Episcopal Church, a congregation of only 25 families, is one of those churches.