FARMINGTON – The Henderson Memorial Baptist Church youth group will sell cookies and hot cocoa on the church lawn before and during the Chester Greenwood parade on Saturday, Dec. 3. Cookies may also be purchased in decorated cans, with proceeds going to benefit a family in need through Heifer Project International.

The children and young people of the church recently purchased two water buffalo, along with rabbits, chickens and honey bees, through the Heifer Project, to be sent to poor undeveloped countries, such as Thailand, the Philippines, Nepal, Cambodia or Zimbabwe.

Sunday school students have regularly brought their dimes and quarters as offerings for special projects, often to help support children of another country. For years, some of them had wanted to buy a water buffalo, but they never collected enough money for the purchase, so had ordered chickens, honey bees or rabbits instead.

Last summer, during Vacation Bible School, leader Gladys Russell and Pastor Susan Crane challenged the young people to give enough to buy a water buffalo. A large basket filled with money so quickly that by the middle of the week, there was $250 for a water buffalo.

Then the group started to save for a second one. By the closing program at the end of the week, Crane announced that the basket held enough cash to buy not only two water buffalo but a trio of rabbits, a flock of chicks and a hive of honey bees.

Water buffalo are used as early settlers used oxen. They can plow through mud, pull cartloads of crops and produce manure for fertilizer. Subsistence-level farmers can produce four times the rice with a water buffalo than by hand-planting. In addition, the water buffalo gives a nutritious, high-protein milk, which can nourish the owner’s family and the remainder can be sold at market.

The recipients of a water buffalo, a sheep, a llama or some other animal, agree to share the offspring of their gift animals with others in need.

For more information on the program, visit www.heifer.org or call 1-800-422-0474.