VGCC Franklin Campus Class Buys Animals
An Environmental Biology class at Vance-Granville Community College’s Franklin County Campus in Louisburg recently used a class project to help a needy family on another continent.
“My students have been learning about sustainable living and comparing life in developed countries with life in developing countries,” VGCC instructor Nikole Zidar recalled. Zidar learned about Heifer International (www.heifer.org) at seminars sponsored by World View, the UNC-Chapel Hill program that partners with VGCC. “Heifer International helps feed poor people around the world (including within the United States) not by sending people food,” Zidar said, “but by giving them livestock, so that the family would not only have a consistent source of nutrition, but would also be able to sell any excess products such as milk, or eggs, to raise money to send children to school, or buy clothing.”
Zidar approached her Environmental Biology class and asked if they would like to have a bake sale to raise enough money to purchase an animal through Heifer International. The students took to the task with enthusiasm and organized a bake sale that raised a little over $150 at VGCC’s Earth Day celebration on April 21 on Main Campus. More was donated in the days after that event.
With its hard-earned funds, the class is purchasing a llama and some chicks, through Heifer International, which will give them to a family somewhere in South America. The students did not originally set out to buy a particular animal; instead, they came up with the concept of a “thermometer” showing the different animals they could buy for different amounts of money they might raise. “The llama, at $150, was the second most expensive animal on the thermometer, which showed the amazing generosity of the VGCC community to come together and raise enough money in a few hours to impact a family and a community in Latin America for a lifetime,” Zidar noted.
Students in the class included Christine Barker, Shanna Billmyer, Jami Bruno, Lauren Byerley, Jaleesa Edwards, Earl Hicks, Rikki Horne, Ashley O’Neal, Lauren Pickett, Heather Thompson, Sarah Van Horne, Phillip Winn, Irma Alvarez-Urbina, Angel Cleghorn-Delgado, Edith Kaczynski, Karen Lindner, Regina Lyons, and Heather Thompson.
Above: A “thermometer” showed the different animals that a VGCC Franklin County Campus class could purchase for different amounts of money. With a little over $150, the class fundraiser exceeded the second-highest point on the thermometer, which represented the cost to buy a llama.
