Mother's Day is Looming...Your Mom Wants Chickens
Ah, Mother's Day. My mom calls it a "Hallmark holiday" but secretly...come on...who doesn't want a day of adoration for doing the whole "birth" thing. I hear it's painful.
But what to get mom? She certainly doesn't need another lame card or a bunch of flowers... although a nice plant for her garden might do the trick. But I'm looking for something lovely that both shows her I learned so much from my upbringing and does a little good on planet Earth.
That's when I stumbled on the OxFam America Unwrapped.
Oxfam International is a confederation of 13 organizations working together with over 3,000 partners in more than 100 countries to find lasting solutions to poverty and injustice. They're superheroes. And this latest incarnation, OxFam America Unwrapped, provides us regular people a chance to buy items like sheep, fair trade honey, the supplies to plant a garden, bicycles, a can of worms, seeds, trees, camels and all kinds of wonderful things to be distributed in the most needy of places. The kinds of places that can be lifted out of the most desperate poverty with small gifts of sustainability, gifts that maintain humanity in otherwise inhumane conditions.
I'm getting my mom a dozen baby chicks for a $40 donation. They're cheaper by the dozen. This gift provides HIV/AIDS-affected households with a starter flock of chickens: a dozen chicks to produce eggs, generate income, and improve nutrition. With my order, OxFam will send a card that I can personalize, explaining to mom what the gift means.
Other ideas:
A goat is the gift of sustainability, which means fertilizer and food for families--especially those living in areas that cannot support less durable critters.
How about school uniforms: In many communities, students are required to show up for school in uniforms. The gift of two school uniforms means that a young boy or girl from a poor family will always have clean clothes for school.
For only $18, you can provide children with books on a wide range of practical topics from agriculture to peace-building. By helping someone open a book, you can open a mind, too.
And as for the aforementioned camel, camels are hard-working animals that save lives. Camels can survive extreme weather conditions over long periods, produce valuable resources like milk and dung for fuel and fertilizer, transport large volumes of drinking water, and be used to move families when they have to flee a disaster-stricken area.
Go check out the site HERE and poke around in the different categories. It's the most fun you'll have filling a shopping cart. They even have a "Green" section, although it doesn't get much greener than a camel.
Seriously, your mom doesn't want another coffee cup. Send a donkey from your mom to another mother who desperately needs it. Moms helping moms. Now THAT'S Mothers' Day.
About this blog
Roxanne Kotzman is a Daily News Photo Department veteran of nine years. When she and longtime friend Stacy Long
discovered their love all of all things environmentally responsible, they launched Happy Monkey Planet and jumped head-first into the vibrant eco-community.
Wow, so much to learn! But initially the idea is a pretty simple one: Let's change the world through information, education and action.
Rox & Stacy are a lot like you: ecologically minded but sometimes just plain overwhelmed when charged with the task of making a far-reaching difference in the environment. They have jobs, families, homes, lives and pets.
But what if doing better was a simple as a light-bulb change, a reusable canvas grocery bag, recycling that soda can or a cold-water wash?
These eco-chicks just hope to have a little fun, learn a little more, share a lot of information and maybe make the planet a happier, greener, cleaner place.
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