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What is Heifer International?
Heifer International is a global nonprofit dedicated to ending world hunger and poverty in a sustainable way. We work in 19 countries around the world alongside local farmers and business owners. We support farmers and their communities as they mobilize and envision their futures, provide training so they can improve the quantity and quality of the goods they produce, and secure connections to market to increase sales and incomes.
For more than 80 years, we have provided families with the resources, education and opportunity to thrive — gifting hope where it’s needed most, a source of income and a brighter tomorrow. We believe that everyone deserves a future free from hunger and poverty, and we want to help instill that belief in children.
What is Read to Feed®?
Our Read to Feed program teaches the fundamentals of caring for others while fostering a love of reading. On the Read to Feed app, the more you read, the more you feed. For more than 20 years, kids around the world have been making a difference for families in need by reading. Now with our digital reading apps, participating in Read to Feed is even easier. Reading progress creates donation opportunities, which go directly to the fight against world hunger and poverty.
In the Read to Feed programs, readers can unlock corporate-funded donations that help families in need by reading books and participating in “eggstra credit.” To make an even bigger impact, readers can also collect pledges based on the number of books read or the time they spent reading.
Three Ways to Use Read to Feed
- Read to Feed: Grades K–6
- Free downloadable app
- Heifer Beanstack: Grades 6–12
- Heifer hosts Read to Feed challenges on the Beanstack platform, a free web-based reading challenge site
- Original Program: All Ages
- Downloadable, printable resources and guides
- Young readers set reading goals and receive sponsorships
You Can Help Young Readers Change the World
Developing literacy skills and interest in lifelong reading is one of the most important tasks children can learn. While text and story is central and timeless, the information age has brought more visibility to other kinds of stories unfolding across the globe. These are the stories of children and adults in need of our support and agency. As children become aware of the experiences of others in our world, our responsibility is to help them not only understand, but provide opportunities to make a difference.
This impactful reading program allows readers to connect with others, establish better reading habits and achieve their reading goals. There are fun digital badges and “streaks” to keep them engaged. They are in charge, and along the way they become the lifelong readers and learners that you have always known them to be.
Six Tips for a Meaningful Read to Feed
- Weave it into a unit that already has themes of multiculturalism, global topics or sustainability at play.
- Use the program as a tool to investigate readers’ cultural relationships to money and consumption practices. For example, in some rural areas of other countries, families prioritize their children’s essentials needs like food, health care and education. These families don’t focus on wants or items they cannot afford like toys, or sports items like soccer balls, baseball bats, etc.
- Use a Read to Feed event to build local community. You could invite the parents of young readers for the launch or conclusion event, or center the program around Earth Day or the holiday season.
- Use the program to introduce a wide range of multicultural texts that come from all around the world. Explore the languages and texts of the communities Heifer supports.
- Use Read to Feed alongside a character program to discuss deeper aspects of empathy and altruism, friendship or any character value you can draw from the program.
- Use this program as a gateway to launching a sustainability movement in your library.
Join the journey by downloading our free Read to Feed app today!
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