Send chickens to people who really need them?

[JoAnn_WI_4-H_Mom]

Bless your generous heart! No one here wants to rain on your parade. It is just so impractical to ship chicks overseas for this purpose.

Many times starving people are in drought striken areas where they could not feed the chick when it arrived. Look at the pictures of those camps, there is not a blade of grass to be seen.

It would probably be more feasible to find the low-income folks in rural / small town areas near you and get them set up with small flocks. They may not want to start from chicks: as you know a lot of money can go into the chicks to get them to laying or eating age. If you are living from day to day, it is difficult to invest money to feed and house a chick for the months it takes to produce food for humans.

If they are in a rural / small town, they may be able to scrounge food for small flocks from lawns, gardens or restaurant dumpsters. I know that sounds awful, but you want to benefit people with little money, they are not going to feed the chickens before they feed their own kids (they won't be able to buy feed). Luckily chickens can survive (maybe even flourish) on some of these foods people find unpalatable.

Good Luck and do keep thinking those people-helping thoughts!

 

[gryeyes]

I've donated through Heifer International for the past three years. I "sent" a flock of chickens, ducks, a trio of rabbits, and some bees to a few people each year.
A member of BYC is planning on forming a BYC Team for Heifer this year, as a matter of fact. I'm just waiting to get more information to move my personal donation effort into one for the BYC Team.

 

[SquirrelGirl]

GryEyes : Thanks!! Can you tell me more about the BYC team? I would love to participate.

JoAnn : That is very true! Thanks for giving me the facts in such a nice way

Im glad noone is being rude lol! I should have thought it through a bit more

 

[carolynb]

13. Do not solicit donations or charitable requests for yourself or other people or organizations.​

 

[SquirrelGirl]

13. Do not solicit donations or charitable requests for yourself or other people or organizations.​

 

[possumqueen]

Quote:
Start the thread!! Start the thread! I've been a heifer fan for years, and I think they'd be a great fit for BYC! I've said so before, too!

 

[gryeyes]

Bibliophile birds on this forum was starting to organize Team BYC with Heifer, I don't know how far along that process got started. I had promised to support Team BYC, but if we get going either way, I will certainly participate!

 

[SquirrelGirl]

Ok here is the new thread:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=3264656#p3264656

 

[SquirrelGirl]

Ummm they deleted my thread... I gues it is not allowed to post about charity.. sorry guys

 

[bibliophile birds]

ok, to be very clear so no one gets in trouble, we cannot solicit donations. but we can talk about it in theory i think. and we can PM each other all we want about it.

here's what i know: you can set up a team through Heifer International and they will collect the donations. each team can set it's own fundraising goal and i believe they choose their gift as well. to start a team or register as a team member you go to the Team Heifer page. it costs $10 to register which goes towards operating costs for HI.

what i can't find out: if everyone who wants to donate to a team has to pay the $10 or just people who want to actively be part of the fundraising. i emailed them to find out but i've not heard anything back. i just hate to think we'd all have to waste $10 each on operating costs when lots of people will only want to make a small donation. money is tight for lots of folks.

i've fallen horribly behind on all this because of personal financial worries (identity theft really does happen! who knew?) which have left me with no cards to charge anything on (for a few more weeks at least). if someone else wants to take the reins and get Team BYC up and running, i won't mind at all. i'm still making my donation but it's going to be a little while before i can.

if you are interested in taking charge or just asking questions, please PM me.