Last year, right around this time, my mother asked me what I wanted for Christmas. I danced around the question, as she did when I asked her the same. Then she admitted she'd already bought a goat in my name. And then I admitted I had bought a share of a water buffalo in her name. So instead of another sweater, my mother helped provide a family in Thailand with a draft animal to till their fields. And instead of another tie to hang in my closet, I helped provide milk to a malnourished family in Cambodia.

Unfortunately, small good deeds don't always satisfy me. And I got to thinking about Heifer International, and how one goat was good but two goats would be better, and how easy it is to give through them, and how I had a bunch of friends and family that probably didn't need more sweaters or ties, and probably wanted to give something more meaningful, too. I had a little more time on my hands, so I sent out two or three emails and raised $5000.

How much is $5000? That's a veritable "Ark": two cows, two oxen, two beehives, two sheep, two water buffalo, two goats, two camels, two llamas, two donkeys, two trios of ducks, two trios of rabbits, two trios of guinea pigs, two flocks of geese, two flocks of chicks, and two pigs. These animals were then sent literally all over the world to families in Russia, Uganda, Kentucky, New Mexico, Indonesia, Guatemala, Kenya, Bolivia, Tanzania, Ghana, North Korea, Peru, China, South Africa, and Cambodia.

If this were a credit card commercial, somewhere in there you'd hear, "Priceless." Instead of supporting the paradigm of materialism, a small collection of well-meaning people made a sustainable gift to support those with less than us and to help them support themselves in the future. A pair of buffalo can till fields for years, produce milk, and provide more buffalo for neighbors and their fields and their thirsty families. That's what we gave last year, and we bettered some lives.

If you think about it, five thousand dollars is only 100 people giving $50 each. Then again, even fifty dollars can seem like a lot to most of us, depending upon where we work. But, think about it this way: if you were going to buy five $10 gag-gifts for office holiday parties and friends of friends, that's $50, and a card saying you bought a llama is far better than a white elephant. If every other day between Thanksgiving and Christmas you were to skip that mid-afternoon latte, that's $50, and you can still support your favorite independent coffee shop. Or if you knew ten people on that list of 100 and you gifted five dollars for each of them, that's $50, and when they did the same for you it doesn't take long to get to $5000. It was almost so easy that I considered trying to raise another Ark before New Year's.

Better still, we learned that together we could pool our resources and give a meaningful gift, and then we could do it again. As you consider donating to your favorite charity this year, round up your friends and share your passion and multiply your impact for a cause you care about. Start a new tradition of giving together. Many gifts are items people don't even want; why not give something that someone else needs?

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Ingredients:

• Friends who care
• A few emails
• Checkbook

Caring Time:

• About an hour

Cost:

• Gifts begin at $30

Results:

• Starting a new tradition
• Less clutter in your closet
• Less time at the mall
• Happy feeling of making a real difference in many people's lives