HISTORY OF HEIFER PROJECT INTERNATIONAL

Since 1944, Heifer International has worked to alleviate hunger and poverty, safeguard the environment, and accompany communities in their quest for food security and a better income. Providing animals and training to families affected by hunger, Heifer’s mission originated as a simple idea: to provide not a glass of milk, but a cow.

Heifer’s founder, Dan West, worked as a volunteer during the Spanish Civil War, helping to distribute glasses of milk donated by the United States to children on both sides of the conflict. Seeing green fields and knowing that people had lost their livestock in the war, he thought, “If these families had a cow, they could avoid the indignity of depending on others to feed their children.”

With its special focus on international development, Heifer also promotes strong communities, sustainability, environmental protection, education and a culture of peace.

Heifer began as "Heifers for Relief" on July 14, 1944, with the gifts of faith, hope, and charity and the delivery of 15 cows to Puerto Rico.