Salve Joins the Fight to End Hunger

Salve Regina University is working with Heifer International, an organization that provides families worldwide with a source of food rather than short-term relief from hunger. The university community is fundraising to purchase a Heifer ark to aid in the fight against hunger. The ark, which requires a $5,000 donation, consists of two of the following: flocks of chicks, sheep, trios of rabbits, beehives, guinea pigs, llamas, camels, donkeys, goats, oxen, cows, trios of ducks, water buffalo, flocks of geese and pigs. Heifer International started out as a simple idea of giving families a source of food rather than short-term relief from hunger. The idea has caught on, and for more than 60 years, Heifer International has given millions of families in 115 countries the opportunity to escape the throes of poverty by giving them animals for eating or working.

Although the partnership with Heifer International is a university-wide project, the New Student Seminar classes of the First Year Experience program have become actively involved. The First Year Experience mentors have each picked a different animal from the ark, and have been educating their respective groups of freshmen about how the different animals are used in the communities that Heifer International assists. In addition, each section has been brainstorming different ways to raise money to get their animal on board the ark.

The above ark represents how much has been raised so far and how much is left to reach our goal. For more information about Heifer International or to donate to the ark project, contact Elizabeth Shirk, First Year Experience coordinator, at Ext. 2383 or by e-mail at elizabeth.shirk@salve.edu. For general information about Heifer International, visit www.heifer.org.