Not So Wordless Wednesday- A Thanksgiving Turkey

This photo is almost ten years old.  I used to take my Londonderry, New Hampshire Girl Scout troop to the Heifer Project "Overlook Farm" in Rutland, Massachusetts.  Heifer's mission is to end world hunger by providing a hand up instead of a handout, usually in the form of farm animals who can keep feeding and providing income for families.  The girls in my troop would spend the whole day doing good deeds for Heifer like mucking out the barn, milking goats, grooming llamas, picking vegetables or whatever else was needed to be done.  

In 2001 we went to Heifer in mid-November.  One of the first chores was a fun one- to round up a number of turkeys and put them in kennels on a truck.  The teenaged girls loved this one, and they all cuddled and cooed over the birds.  It wasn't until later that one of them realized why the turkeys were taken away on the truck.  They were orders for customers Thankgiving tables (a Heifer fundraiser)! 

These girls are all college graduates now.  We started volunteering for Heifer when they were about nine years old, and the last time we went to Overlook Farm they were all in high school. Every one of them told me that their years of service at Heifer were their favorite memories of being a Girl Scout.  Our troop disbanded in 2004 and the first troop reunion is planned for this Christmas, and I'll have to show them this photo!

Click here for a link to Heifer International's Overlook Farm
http://www.heifer.org/site/c.edJRKQNiFiG/b.201558/
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Copyright 2010, Heather Wilkinson Rojo