Best.Gift.Ever in Action

Choosing a gift from the Best.Gift.Ever catalogue makes a BIG impact on the lives of children in Canada and around the world! Here are just some of the ways these gifts have given hope to children and families this past year.

Children learn important traditions from their elders through activities like medicine-picking.

TRADITIONAL ACTIVITIES: $32

Gifts from the Best.Gift.Ever catalogue have given children in Indigenous communities in Canada the opportunity to participate in land-based activities like hunting, fishing, food preservation and medicine picking.

On a sunny afternoon in Waywayseecappo First Nation, a group of community members gathered for a medicine-picking trip, a tradition they’ve been practicing for many years.

Barb, an elder in the community, remembers going medicine picking with her own grandmother years ago.

“We would stay a week at a time, pick berries. My grandmother was always picking medicines, and we were always playing.”

Barb learned valuable traditions that she now passes on to younger generations. The medicine picking trip is part of a larger community-led land-based education program.

SEEDS: $36

Madam Ansha’s harvests have doubled thanks to the gift of seeds.

“Since I started using Boset seed, my harvest has doubled.”

Madam Ansha Oumar Seid has seen more than a few tough harvests. Growing enough food to feed her family was always a challenge, and she could not afford the uniforms to keep her children in school.

Once she received her new Boset seeds (a climate-resistant, high-yielding variety of teff), she saw a dramatic improvement in her children’s lives.

“The quality of my living has changed. I am able to feed my children better than before, buy them clothes, and keep their personal hygiene,” she explained.

Madam Ansha’s seven children are now going to school and growing stronger every day.

Pigs are valuable assets that help women increase their income

PIG: $50

Pigs provide families with extra income and are also an important protein source. But their impact goes even further.

Jane in Uganda struggled to earn enough to keep her family fed and send her youngest daughter Josephine to school. Thanks to your support, she received a piglet this year through a community pay-it-forward system. She successfully bred her pig and will pass four piglets on to other mothers in her community. The rest are hers to use as assets for her family.

“I feel rich already. It is very good to pass on animals to other families, because imagine, if someone had not passed a piglet onto me, I would not have what I have now.”

Best of all – the extra income she is earning means Josephine is now going to school!

Mr. Goshu is sending his boys to school thanks to the gift of bees.

BEES: $54

When you give the gift of bees, you help families earn the extra income that can stop them from going hungry and lift them out of poverty. For Goshu Belete in Ethiopia, subsistence farming wasn’t enough to feed his family of ten all year round.

“I didn’t have much access to irrigation, and didn’t get good harvests. I used to have traditional beehives but production was not good,” he says.

Thanks to the Best.Gift.Ever, Goshu received new bees, training and an improved apiary just in time.

”This year I had four beehives and sold 11,000 birr ($580 CAD) in honey. We sell part of the honey and keep some,” he told us.

“I am sending my children to school now. Before it was very difficult. Now, I don’t worry.”

Jhoselin has seen how community gardens fight hunger in her community.

SCHOOL AND COMMUNITY GARDEN: $79

This past year, 14-year-old Jhoselin in Bolivia has seen just how important gardens are for her community:

“There are many families with many children who do not have enough money to buy food so they are not well-fed.”

Jhoselin visits the Alpacoma Centre regularly to do homework, and was recently elected president of her class. But it’s the centre’s garden that has become her passion.

“This past year I supported my friends as a guide in the production at the garden and was part of the Youth for Food Security Group at the Alpacoma Centre.”

Thanks to donor support, community members are coming together to grow fresh vegetables and fruit in the garden. Thank you for helping to make this happen!

WOMEN’S INCOME GROUPS: $120

Helen has saved an emergency fund thanks to her women’s income group

Helen, a mother of six, is part of a Village Savings and Loans Association (VSLA) in northern Ghana. As a subsistence farmer, she often found it difficult to grow enough to earn a stable income, and she worried about her family’s future.

Helen learned to plant millet, a crop that gave higher yields on her small plot of land. Helen has also branched out into basket weaving. Women’s income groups, funded through programs like the Best.Gift.Ever, have been key to Helen’s success. She has worked hard, and now she earns a stable income.

“If anything happens in my family, I have my savings to fall back in case of emergency,” she told us.

Faith receives a meal of porridge at her school.

FEED A CHILD: $175/year

Five-year-old Faith in Uganda looks forward to school every day.

“I like being at school because I meet my friends and play with them. I also have a meal during break that I don’t get at home.”

Faith is part of a large and loving family, raised by her grandparents since her parents passed away. Her grandparents do their best to provide for Faith, her sister and her young cousins. But there were times when they just weren’t able to put nutritious food on the table and Faith sometimes had to miss school.

Thanks to the gift of school meals, Faith now eats nutritious food during the school day and has a chance to grow up happy and healthy.

Visit bestgiftever.ca or call 1-800-387-1221