Student project buys livestock for Third World

Kristyn Morin never goes looking for community service projects for her students, but somehow the projects always seem to find her.

Two years ago, the sophomores in her Western Civilization class transformed a Glacier High School hallway into a Holocaust museum. Last year’s sophomores raised awareness about slavery and human trafficking.

This year’s class is buying farm animals for families in Third World countries.

They will make their purchase through World Vision, a Christian nonprofit humanitarian organization that addresses poverty and injustice around the world. World Vision offers several ways to help, including buying chickens, goats and other livestock for families.

One hundred dollars will buy a goat and two chickens.

“The [website] had stories of what it can do, not just to help one person, but how that one person can help the family, and how that family can help the village, and how that village can help the country, and how that country can help the world,” Morin said.

“It’s the old, ‘Give a man a fish and you’ll feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you’ll feed him for a lifetime.’”

Morin found out about the program when a World Vision catalog arrived in her mailbox. When she asked her students if they’d be interested in buying a goat and some chickens, they were instantly enthusiastic.

They spent about a week asking their peers and teachers for spare change during their lunch period. The idea was to connect the project to Glacier High’s “Be the Change” motto this year, Morin said.

She worried the fundraiser wouldn’t be successful because two other drives were happening at the school at the same time: a canned food drive and the annual giving tree. But her students collected $635 for World Vision.

“These kids are just unbelievable,” she said. “I always find the kids who have the least are oftentimes the most generous, because they know what it’s like to have nothing.”

In addition to nickels and dimes, the project attracted a couple of larger donations, Morin said. A faculty member who wants to remain anonymous donated $100. A student also made an anonymous $100 donation after Morin told a story about a past fundraising experience.

Five years ago, she was collecting money for animals that had been displaced by Hurricane Katrina. A student handed her a $100 check, and Morin was so thrilled that she held the check up for the class, praising the student’s generosity.

The student pulled her aside.

“She said, ‘Miss Morin, can I talk to you? Part of charity is done through grace, anonymously. You don’t want to draw attention to your good deed,’” Morin said. “I told [this year’s class] the story. It was so beautiful ... so genuine, so heartfelt.”

One student apparently took the story to heart. He or she took $100 from a savings account and wrote an anonymous money order.

The money they raised will allow the students to purchase more than their original goal of one goat and two chickens.

“We are ecstatic,” Morin said. “We plan to buy for six families now in the same village, each a goat and two chickens and maybe we will throw in some ducks.”

The class doesn’t get to choose where its donation goes, but they will receive information from World Vision about the families they help.

Morin praised her students for their generosity.

“I don’t even need a Christmas any more. This was awesome,” she said.

Reporter Kristi Albertson may be reached at 758-4438 or at kalbertson@dailyinterlake.com.