Give a Goat
This article originally appeared in SLJ's Extra Helping. Sign up now!
By Debra Lau Whelan -- School Library Journal, 10/29/2008 2:10:00 PM
Jan Schrock knows a thing or two about giving. As the daughter of Dan West, founder of the charity Heifer International, she was surrounded by generosity all the time. In her first children’s book, Give a Goat (Tilbury, 2008), Schrock tells the true story of a fifth-grade class in Maine that learns they can make a difference by carrying out Heifer’s mission: to stop poverty and world hunger by giving the gift of livestock and training.
This is your first children’s book. Was it always something you planned to do?
I’ve always wanted to. I’m a retired teacher myself. I think it’s just great to give children inspiring books. They thrill me.
Where did the idea come from?
I always wanted to write stories related to Heifer—Heifer as seen through the eyes of a child. I live in Maine, and I met some people at Tilbury House, at a library conference. When they heard that I was working for Heifer, that I lived nearby in Maine, that I was the founder’s daughter, and that I have traveled extensively for Heifer, they said, “We’d like to have you write a chlidren’s book.”
Did you already know that you wanted to write about Mrs. Rowell’s fifth-grade class in Portland?
Tilbury said send us six little scenarios, so I produced scenarios of Heifer’s work as seen through the eyes of a 10-year-old in Armenia, Rwanda, China, the USA, and Ecuador. One was about kids here in Portland, ME, in a classroom that raised money for a goat to give to Heifer.
Why did this classroom stand out?
When I first came up here, I was working with donors. When I saw that a large amount of money had come from a teacher, I called her to thank her. And we got talking, and she told me that part of the way she raised money was from the kids in her classroom, and I said tell me about this. So the book came out of her actual experience. It’s a true story, and she gave me permission to use her real name. She’s still teaching fifth graders.
I’m sure other schools have been equally motivated by Heifer’s work.
Anna Barber, a teacher at the Great Salt Bay School in Damariscotta, ME, inspired her whole PreK-to-eighth-grade school. She got the whole school excited about a campaign, and they sign a contract or a pledge form to read three books and ask the community to give a quarter or 50 cents for each one read. She also went to the business community and asked them to support children in her school to read. They’ve raised tons of money, different sums every year.
Can schools add this project to their curriculum?
Yes, because we tie it to the standards and our resource kit is all tied to the national standards. Teachers like that.
I noticed from your Web site that Heifer has a pretty comprehensive education program.
This October Heifer has three more children’s books coming out. They supplement Beatrice’s Goat (by Page McBrier; Atheneum, 2001). These three books are coming out in a packet called the Global Education Resource Kit, and there are lesson plans in there for teachers, and it’s geared from PreK all the way through grade six. We’ve had an education program for teachers for decades now, and the global resource kit is a whole new version.
What’s a good age to start teaching kids about philanthropy?
I’m not going to put an age on it because it depends upon the parent, the educators, the teachers, the librarians who can inspire. They can find that little button and press it. I can tell you a story about a kid in New York. For his Bar Mitzvah party, he wanted all his money to go to Heifer—and he was only 13. We asked him why and he said, “My mom would always take food to the homeless people who lived under the bridge.” I think back to my own grandmother who would put a loaf of bread out in the milk house. When she baked bread there would be an extra loaf out there for the beggar who came by.
Jan Schrock with school kids in China.
It must have been quite an experience growing up the daughter of Dan West.
We always had a worldview in our house. I learned a lot from our congregation, from our little church. I was fascinated at a very young age by those missionaries who came through. I wasn’t so taken up by the mission work but the places where they worked—China, India, Nigeria, Ecuador—wherever they were. I would run home and find it on the map. As I young child I knew about the globe and our world.
You must have learned a lot about the power of communities.
That’s how Heifer works. We don’t just give livestock and training to an individual’s family. We bring communities together. And the second component is passing on the gift. Everybody who receives something from Heifer then signs a contract and passes it on to a neighbor or someone else in the community. What we are doing is instilling community life and also sharing, so a recipient becomes a donor. And there you have the dignity. What we do is give a person a fishing pole and teach them to fish, so they’re not fed for one day but they have food for a lifetime. If we really want to make a difference in the world, we have to educate people. Until you educate yourself about the root causes of hunger and poverty in this world, you’re not going to make a difference, and Heifer’s not. That’s why we educate kids, we work with communities. We work with all kinds of people to help them see how they can participate in bringing together a prosperous and peaceful world.
Do you operate mainly from donations?
For the most part, yes. We take a little government money—less than five percent—because we want to be in charge. We just got a huge grant from the Gates Foundation. It started out with them finding us and asking us “How would you spend $8 million?” It took us two years to education them. We told them we provide livestock and training to communities because they need income and nutrition. So the Gates Foundation said, “We’re really working on HIV/AIDS and helping people manage that and going through the hoops to stay alive.” They said they weren’t really thinking about agriculture. But we said, “Lots of people who take the meds need nutrition, three meals a day. And they need income to buy that medication and transport themselves there.” There was a back and forth and finally two years later, they gave us $42.8 million for three countries— Rwanda, Uganda, and Kenya, a total of 170,000 families!
