CWS uses innovative – and inexpensive – strategies to help eliminate child malnutrition and anemia. Photo: Indonesia, Mike Bloem/ACT Alliance
NEW YORK, N.Y. – For Valentine’s Day, candy’s dandy but alternative gifts are quicker, go farther, and don’t show up on the bathroom scales, says humanitarian agency Church World Service.
The relief, development and refugee protection agency says giving an affordable, “alternative gift” in your sweetheart’s name helps people in the world’s poorest communities rise out of poverty, hunger and childhood malnutrition – and can say more than a box of chocolates about the love you share for one another and the world you live in.
CWS’s online Best Gift catalog offers creative options, especially for last minute lovers who find the remaining florist flowers few and wilted, and instant redemption is a click or phone call away with electronic ordering.
From the global agency’s alternative gift choices, you can sprinkle some love around by giving nourishing micronutrients to spare a child from malnutrition. A year’s supply of Vitalita sprinkles for one child, or 200 packets of protein and nutrient-rich Plumpy’nut, costs just $12.
Or plant a virtual kiss on your honey’s cheek by giving a $35 gift of 200 tree seedlings to poor rural farmers struggling to restore denuded lands so they can grow lasting food and nutrition security for their families and for market.
For more magnanimous gifters, or to put all your Valentine’s hearts in one bigger, group-give basket, for $100 the CWS Best Gift catalog offers the gift of 5 household-capacity sized bio-sand water filters – a simple, compact container system that filters out sediment, pathogens and other impurities in a natural process through layers of sand to produce safe drinking water. One in six people worldwide don’t have access to safe fresh water for drinking and hygiene.
For green-giving ideas, there’s a household biogas system for $150 that produces clean-burning methane gas for cooking and other energy use, and whose safe, natural compost byproducts are also used to fertilize crops.
When visiting the online catalog, you can also personalize a Valentine’s e-card to send right away to your designated Valentines, announcing the special gift you’ve given in their honor – and how it’s helping struggling families build a better future.
More about Church World Service people-powered self-reliance and sustainable development work:www.churchworldservice.org, and to order alternative gifts by phone, call: (800) 297-1516.