that benefit world's needy
The perfect present for someone on your holiday shopping list who already has everything just might be a gift that helps someone else who is truly in need.
That is the philosophy behind the third annual Alternative Gift Market being hosted on Wednesday, Dec. 8, by the student group Reach Out. The event, which raises funds for projects to benefit communities in the developing world and locally, will take place 1-6 p.m. at Dwight Hall, 67 High St., on Yale's Old Campus.
The Alternative Gift Market gives members of the Yale community and the general public an opportunity to help support the work of non-government organizations that provide relief, education, medicine and shelter for those in need throughout the world. Visitors to the market make a donation to a project or projects of their choice. The person in whose name the donation was made receives a certificate describing exactly how the donation was spent.
Among the 33 projects represented in the Alternative Gifts International Program are shelter for children in Uganda orphaned by AIDS; tools for community gardening programs in several developing countries; the release of thousands of children and adults (among an estimated 10 million) who live in bonded slavery in India; and wheelchairs for thousands of disabled people in the Congo.
The prices of the gifts range from high to low, depending on the project. For example:
* For the "One Sack of Groceries" initiative, which provides food assistance for a growing number of hungry U.S. families caught in economic crisis, $15 purchases one sack of groceries for one family for one day, while $5 provides a nourishing meal for one family.
* For the "Back to School" program, which helps Iraqi students to continue their education in the aftermath of war by supplying and rebuilding their schools, $42 provides a school desk and chair for one student, while $4 buys school supplies for one youngster.
* For "Revive the Rainforest," which seeks to conserve land in one of the last temperate rainforests in Chile, $83 preserves one acre of the Valdivian Temperate Forest, while $1 helps a local inhabitant plant a native tree.
* For "Bank on a Water Buffalo," which aims to lighten the load of subsistence farmers in Cambodia by providing the animals needed to help in agricultural production, $100 purchases one water buffalo calf, while $10 purchases one share of a calf.
The Alternative Gift Market is one of many events and programs organized by Reach Out, the Yale College partnership for service in the developing world. Last year the Alternative Gift Market raised about $8,000 for communities abroad.
This year the market brings donations to projects closer to home by inviting local established non-profit organizations to participate. The Dwight Hall Alternative Gift Market offers visitors a chance to purchase crayons and books for children in after-school programs, meals for the elderly or homeless, or sheets and towels for families and individuals leaving shelters and moving into their own homes.
The project catalog of Alternative Gifts International can be found at www.altgifts.org.
For more information about Reach Out, visit the website at www.yalereachout.org; or contact Adam Barth at (301) 325-3512 or adam.barth@yale.edu.
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