PERRYVILLE: It takes a global village

Students learn about world issues at Heifer Ranch camps

By Jeannie Stone

LITTLE ROCK — Heifer Ranch in Perryville is a destination for volunteers who yearn to make a difference, even if that’s only for a weekend at the camps going on this summer for students.

A brochure at the welcome center has printed in it, “At Heifer Ranch, more than 28,000 visitors a years become familiar with the root causes of poverty and hunger and Heifer’s work to help the struggling achieve self-reliance.”

Keisha Patterson, volunteer manager at the Learning Center at Heifer Ranch, said volunteer opportunities are available year-round, but the Summer Action program offers one- and two- week camps for kids 12-18 years old. Many of the campers come with their church group, Scout troop, family or schools.

“We feed lunch to approximately 200 kids each day,” Patterson said. Most of the instructors are adults who make up a large volunteer staff.

The goal of camp one day was to impress on the campers where food comes from. At the Central and Eastern European House, campers had been working all morning to make pizza. They had been grinding wheat to make floor, milking goats to make cheese and picking herbs and tomatoes for a sauce.

To produce cheese, the group heated the milk and added vinegar to separate the liquid into curds and whey.

“It’s fascinating for these kids to see the whole process,” Zoe Zenner of Louisiana, a staff member, said. “Most of these kids never gave much thought to what went into making their food. They’re used to going to the grocery store and buying whatever they need. We hope to connect them closer to their food source.”

While the pizzas were baking, Keather Atkins, an adult volunteer from Greenwood, led the campers through a game of Heifer Pictionary. Every team planned their perfect meal, including appetizers and desserts, and took turns guessing the other teams’ menus by interpreting the team’s drawings on a flip chart. Hysterics ensued as several kids questioned the accuracy of the drawings.

When the pizzas were out of the oven, the kids piled into the kitchen and each grabbed a slice. “It’s pretty good,” Ryan Blood, 12, of Kentucky said. “I’m still hungry, but I know we’re fixing to go to lunch.”

Marie Blake of Texas, an adult volunteer, said,“Imagine if this was all you got for lunch.” It seemed as if the kids were doing just that as the room filled with silence.

After a proper lunch, the group headed for the pond where Lyndsey Kuehn, educational coordinator, delivered a lesson on the most basic universal resource, water. “Do a lot of people have the luxury of watering their lawn?” she asked the campers. “In the western desserts of the United States, cities pump their water in from farmlands from otherstates. What do you think is in that water?”

The group headed for the air-conditioned classroom to enjoy a movie and cookies. The short film highlighted some of the locations around the world where Heifer International is addressing critical water issues. The situations were varied and covered the scope of the world. In Romania, the organization supplied villages with seeds to plant a forestto prevent recurring flooding. In the Philippines, the organization taught village elders how to test and treat contaminated water. Closer to home, Grand Lake in eastern Oklahoma has suffered from chicken-factory farming methods, and Heifer has encouraged the industry to adopt earth-friendly techniques in their farming methods.

The solar cookies the group enjoyed were put out in the sun earlier in the day to bake. “They took a little longer to cook up because the clouds rolled in this morning,” Kuehn said. They might not have looked pretty, but the zucchini, chocolate chip whole-wheat cookies were inhaled by the campers who dubbed them “delicious.”

After the movie, the class assignment was to consider a large canvas on the middle of the floor. On the canvas was painted the world, and campers were instructed to stand in the countries in accordance to their populations. One camper equaled 150 million world citizens. Two tennis shoes sat on American soil to represent its population. When the actual numbers were shared, it was easy to see that Asia’s population dwarfed the rest of the world. A shoe took the place of each camper with a great tower of shoes forming over the Asian continent.

Next, the discussion revolved around the issue of consumerism. Campers were instructed to place lapel buttons in accordance with the amount of money each country spent. Europe and the U.S. each made up a third of the entire world’s spending.

During a short break, the campers retrieved their sleeping bags and deposited them at the Global Village barn where preparations were under way for the overnight experience. This was the highlight of the week for the campers and their chaperones.

After touring the global village, the campers were assigned to spend the night in one of the villages and faced the food limitations and hazardous conditions typical of life under those conditions.

The villages included grass huts from Guatemala, a log cabin from Appalachia, a corrugated metal lean-to from auniversal urban slum, an African village, a refugee camp and a Thai village. At each village, the group stopped and read a scenario card from a child’s viewpoint.

From under a rusting roof made of discarded tin, a fictional child spoke from the urban slum. “My brother and I try to salvage scrap metal and sell it forfood, but we can’t find much. Someone told my father there was work here, but there was no job. I miss my home and the green hills we used to run on.”

Kuehn explained that the overnight adventure was aimed at understanding the root causes of hunger and poverty. “It’s always interesting to see how the campers react to their situation.Depending on the assigned village, they may have very little diversity in their meal. Some people will trade, some will be tempted to steal, and some people will just sit alone and eat. You can’t tell which way you will react until your stomach is grumbling.”

Camp activities ended on a Thursday night with the muchanticipated Heifer County Fair, which pitted the visiting groups in down-home competitions such as “Kiss the Camel,” “Spitting Seeds” contest, and waterballoon fights.

Camper Tommy Ternes, 13, of Minnesota shared his impression of the camp. “We are blessed to have been born in this country. We have to help others who don’t even have enough to eat.”

Zenner said, “Recently, seven little girls from Missouri held bake sales, raked yards and, pretty much did whatever they could to raiseover $1,000 to help build an ark for Heifer. Wouldn’t it be great if other kids would challenge themselves to make a difference?”

Keisha Patterson said her knowledge of Heifer International began with Beatrice’s Goat, the children’s book based on Beatrice Biira of Africa, who received a goat from the organization. The picture book followed Beatrice and documented the impact that goat made on Beatrice and her community.

Patterson, who was employed with the Little Rock School District at the time, received the book as a baby shower gift from her boss, who was a Heifer supporter. Over the years, she read the book to her sons dozens of times and was always enchanted with the simple story. When her eldest son reached elementaryschool, Patterson volunteered to chaperone a field trip to the ranch where the impact of the organization’s mission inspired her to join the staff.

Today, Beatrice from the children’s book is a college graduate and is enrolled at the Clinton School of Public Policy for the fall semester. Her dream is to return to her home, work with Heifer and help her people better their lives. That pretty much sums up the philosophy of the organization: Pass on the gift.

For more information or to volunteer or tour the global village, call (501) 889-5124 or log on to www.heifer.org/ranch.

River Valley Ozark, Pages 66, 69 on 07/03/2008