""It is more blessed to give than to receive.'" -Acts 20:35
The Rwanda Community Partnership is once again offering Callaway County residents the opportunity to give both blessings to their friends and loved ones this year, with an array of alternative gift options to benefit projects in Callaway's sister community of Kibungo, Rwanda.
Options include purchasing livestock, helping establish a craft cooperative or helping children advance their education.
Partnership founder Bob Hansen said the alternative gifts are sustainable presents that continue to give long after the original purchase of a goat, pig, beehive or study lamp.
"For people that tell you, "I really don't need anything,' for $10 you can change someone's life," Hansen said. "I can go for that lamp or pig, because I know there's a greater good out there that is being met."
This is the seventh year of the community partnership, and over that time, Hansen said Fulton and Callaway County residents have helped build two clinics, assisted more than 100 children study at night with solar powered lamps and helped more than 50 families start their own livestock "businesses.
According to Hansen, the first 25 female pig projects have now resulted in more than 250 pigs, with similar success with the goat projects.
He said this year, the goal is to have 50 Callaway donors sponsor a pig or goat because the partnership already has a donor who has agreed to match each one with another pig or goat, "so local families, for $30 or $35, will actually be helping two families start raising livestock."
Projects this year:
•Pig: For $30, a donor can "sponsor" a female pig for a family. A typical pig will have six piglets at each birthing, with the first female piglet going to a neighbor, two more kept to raise as brood stock and three sold at market with proceeds going to pay for the family's school fees and medical bills.
•Goat: For $35, a donor can "sponsor" a female goat for a family. As with the pigs, the goat's offspring will be given to other families, kept for the families' use and taken to market to help bring in income to help with family expenses.
•Solar lamp: For $11, a donor can purchase a solar study lamp for a child in sixth grade. The children who receive the lamps live in homes without electricity, and the lamps will help them study for the high school qualifying exam they take in seventh grade. Hansen said a visit to the schools in Rwanda "showed remarkable progress for students with these lamps."
"The headmaster and teachers were amazed at the motivating effects the study lamps had on kids who used the evenings to study and read," Hansen wrote in an email.
In an interview Tuesday, he added that the group is also trying to provide students with more story books - some in English and some in their native language - to help encourage a love of reading. Hansen said $10 would purchase four books.
•Beehives: For $40, a donor can purchase a beehive for a family. Because Rwanda has 12 months of moderate weather, the bees can produce honey year round.
•Craft Cooperative: A women's group in the village of Mvumba wants to start a craft cooperative so they can sell their work in larger towns and cities. The partnership hopes to raise $500 to help purchase materials and offset transportation costs. The partnership will accept donations of any size for this project.
Hansen said he wanted to thank the Fulton and Callaway communities for their support of the Rwanda Community Partnership over the past seven years "and their ongoing commitment to be a good partner."
"Their donations are paying huge dividends," Hansen said.