Getting Your Goat
My church is doing something a little different this Harvest Festival. The vicar thought that the usual routine, having everyone bring produce to lay around the altar in thanks, then donating the resulting huge pile of canned goods to the local night shelter, didn't make a whole lot of sense for an urban parish. As a result, we're sponsoring goats.
FARM-Africa is a charity that runs what our Reader described as a Goat Bank. They lend a pair of goats out to a family, who get the milk, wool, manure and so on. Eventually the family pay the goats back to the bank, but they get to keep the "interest" -- the kids. Enough to start a herd, at least, which gives the family some measure of independence as well as food. A classic example of teaching a man to fish.
So yes, this year we're collecting money to spend on goats. The goatometer was at six and a half before we even started the week, then there's today's collection, a "Goats and Other Animals" concert in a couple of weeks, a coffe morning or two, and so on. Me, I'm pushing the idea of singing something from Flanders and Swann's Bestiary, otherwise I can see myself getting stuck with "The Lonely Goatherd".
FARM-Africa is a charity that runs what our Reader described as a Goat Bank. They lend a pair of goats out to a family, who get the milk, wool, manure and so on. Eventually the family pay the goats back to the bank, but they get to keep the "interest" -- the kids. Enough to start a herd, at least, which gives the family some measure of independence as well as food. A classic example of teaching a man to fish.
So yes, this year we're collecting money to spend on goats. The goatometer was at six and a half before we even started the week, then there's today's collection, a "Goats and Other Animals" concert in a couple of weeks, a coffe morning or two, and so on. Me, I'm pushing the idea of singing something from Flanders and Swann's Bestiary, otherwise I can see myself getting stuck with "The Lonely Goatherd".