Life's most urgent question is: What are you doing for others?

— Martin Luther King, Jr.

This session introduces the intangible gift of helping, and teaches children that they can help people they have never met, as well as people they know. While helping is an intangible gift, helping produces tangible results. Many organizations raise funds and offer assistance in many forms to people all over the world. Heifer International provides tangible help in the form of animals, and engages families in sustainable agricultural enterprise. Recipients help their families by feeding their children and selling the animal's milk, eggs, or wool, and also help their neighbors by sharing the animal's offspring.

The children will learn that when we help people, we affirm our seventh Principle, the interdependent web of all existence. We are all connected — to each other, to animals and to the Earth. Helping also affirms our first Principle, that each person is important, including people we may never meet, and our second Principle, that we work for peace and justice in our world.

Goals

This session will:

• Introduce the concept of the interdependent web through a concrete example and an experiential activity
• Engage participants in helping people whom they will never meet and giving money to make the world more just and equitable
• Show how the intangible gift of helping affirms our first, second and seventh Principles: the inherent worth and dignity of every person; justice, equity, and compassion in human relations; and the interdependent web of life.

Learning Objectives

Participants will:

• Consider a story about how people help others by contributing to an organization that helps families develop sustainable agricultural livelihoods
• Experience connectedness through an active game
• Make a Helping Hands Wreath to represent working collectively in the service of others.