EDIT: We’ve had a few people ask how long this fundraiser is going to run so thought there might be other people interested. We are running it until Easter Sunday, April 24. So, if you’d like to work on contributing as a family, or if you’d like to become a team member and collect more donations, there is plenty of time 🙂
Spring is the season of new hope and opportunity. This spring we are asking you, our dear readers, to join us in helping those in great need.
For a while now, Mom and I have discussed ways in which we could use the popularity of our blog to give something back to the world as a whole. We feel that we are blessed with the opportunity to reach so many. Wee Folk Art itself has become a service project in our minds. We know that our free patterns have been used by many families that have had financial challenges. We know that there are many children who have received beautiful homemade gifts in times when their families had little to give. We also know that many have sold projects using our patterns to raise some money for their families, schools or other service projects. Their stories have helped keep us inspired and given us encouragement to countinue our work.
So what are we asking? My mother and I decided this spring to pull some of our spending money and instead of adding to our crafting stashes for a few weeks, to buy a sheep. A whole sheep… a whole sheep with all it’s woolly goodness for a community in need through Heifer International. But why stop there, we thought? We know others, many others, who we can ask to help, too. So we have created a Heifer team with a $2,000 goal. Being our first time trying a project like this, we weren’t sure what our goal should be… but if each of our daily readers gave just $1 we would exceed that goal the first day. If each of our unique monthly readers gave just $1 we could raise over $40,000 this month! Help us reach our goal!
Why Heifer International? Because we like the idea that each animal bought through Heifer international represents an opportunity for self-reliance for a family living in poverty. Rather than a hand out, these animals offer a new way of life to those in great need.
You can donate towards the Wee Folk Art team goal with a one time donation or consider joining the team. Once you join the team you can then set a personal goal to start raising funds from your friends and family. Visit our Heifer team page to learn more. This spring, help us give a gift of hope to a family in need. Your gift will help provide livestock, seeds or training to a family struggling with hunger and poverty.
If this is something your family chooses to participate in, we suggest reading the book (if you haven’t already with our Harvest Time unit) Beatrice’s Goat with your children. It tells the story of a family who received a goat through the Heifer project.
So, won’t you consider saying “Thank You” to us, by giving just a little to help other families become self-reliant. We have a goal of $2,000.00, but pulling together, who knows what we can accomplish. Thanks from the bottom of our hearts 🙂
Wee Folk Art has no interaction with any of the money raised through this online team fund raiser. All of your donations will go directly to Heifer. We are merely spreading the word and asking for help. Heifer uses the latest encryption technology, Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), to ensure all your online donations and transactions are safe and secure.
What a marvelous idea! I donated!
Thank you so much. We truly appreciate each and every donation 🙂
Greetings from Carolina! I’m bored to tears at work so I decided to check out your
website on my iphone during lunch break. I really
like the info you provide here and can’t wait to take a look when I get
home. I’m amazed at how fast your blog loaded on my cell phone ..
I’m not even using WIFI, just 3G .. Anyways, good site!
Wonderful organization. The youth group in our church has the organization as an ongoing outreach project. Thanks for supporting them and I challenge you readers to read about them and support this effort. God Bless!
My brother’s family attends a church where they host a fund raiser every year for Heifer. That’s how we first learned about it many years ago.
This is a wonderful idea. My son’s class at Prairie Hill Waldorf School in WI did this one year. They were able to purchase an ark! Thanks for spreading the love and hope!
It is definitely an organization that children can relate to. I’m glad your school ran this program. What a wonderful experience for your children.
I love the idea and donated straight away. Glad to have a chance to pay it forward!
Thanks so much. Just a little from many will make a huge difference 🙂
Heifer is great! I’ve used them for years, give donations as Christmas presents.
I also recommend Kiva – you can do micro loans. Kiva.org
Thanks for sharing this link. I had never heard of the organization. I’ve spend a lot of time there today. I definitely want to get involved 🙂
I donated to say thanks to WFA for the awesome inspiration and projects you share with us. You enrich our homeschooling and make it affordable for us to have beautiful and inspiring crafts.
I hope you make it an annual thing to post a fundraiser with Heifer or Kiva or Oxfam etc. By next year my oldest child might be able to understand enough to add his own donation, which would be extra special.
Off to buy the book, which includes a contribution to Heifer, apparently. 🙂
Thank you Tanja for all your kind words and your donation. Nothing honors us and the work we do more than having our readers reach out and help others out. We will definitely do more fundraisers in the future. As our blog has been blessed with a growing readership, we feel a growing sense of responsibility to our global community. We are glad you have joined us!
I made a donation to thank you both for sharing patterns, ideas, & inspiration with all of us.
Thank you Patty. We are so glad you enjoy our site and that you are helping us help the Heifer project 🙂
Our family has been saving our change to buy a goat–but I would love to donate to your goal as well!
It is so exciting to see how many families are already involved with Heifer International! A goat is very useful, indeed. Did you read Beatrice’s Goat? Thanks for contributing to this fundraiser, too 🙂
Great idea! Question… how long will you be running this fundraiser. Discussed it with my crew and they’d like to donate by doing chores. I was impressed that they came up with that suggestion!
We are going to run this fundraiser through Easter, April 24, so there is plenty of time for your children to be involved. YAY! Hope it proves to be meaningful to one and all!
Heifer International is a truly wonderful organization. I am good friends with a man who volunteered to serve as part of the crew who made a film about Beatrice many years ago. He was so happy to see first hand the changes that such a simple gift had brought to a family – and an entire community. I have also had the pleasure to meet a few people who work for Heifer in DC. When people can’t say enough good things about the company they work for, it is a pretty strong endorsement. Finally, because I am a farmer myself, the work being done by Heifer is very close to my heart. This is a great fundraiser and I will be happy to help Wee Folk reach (or exceed!) its goals.
I have yet to hear anything negative about Heifer. Not only are we impressed with all the help they bring other people, but the manner in which they do… helping others help themselves. Thanks for sharing how you personally are acquainted with the organization. Very positive testimonies! Finally… thanks for pitching in and helping WFA reach our goals 🙂
Heifer International is a great organization and one I’ve often supported in the past. I love your idea of getting your fans to donate. Someone came into one of my classes recently and said that he thinks the trend is getting to be that every organization will have to have community service type goals and you guys are really going with that trend. Its really great to get your fans involved by allowing them to create a page on your team page to keep passing on the gift of giving ! I also really like the way you guys think as in if every fan donates $1. That is how my mom always rationalizes useful purchases (if i use it every day for 3 months i’ve gotten my moneys worth etc) so it makes it a more manageable donation in people’s minds. Plus who doesn’t wanna help end world hunger right ?
Thanks for your support, Victoria. I think it is important to teach children at a very early age to share. Heifter International has such a tangle way of helping children understand giving. Money is a hard concept to understand, but children understand chickens and goats 🙂