Interview with Jan West Schrock
by Jill Tullo*

Jan West Schrock has worked as a classroom teacher, special needs teacher and school administrator both in the United States and abroad. She is currently a senior advisor for the charity Heifer International, an organization founded in 1944 by her father, Dan West, who worked as a relief worker during the Spanish Civil War. Heifer International, originally named Heifers for Relief, has grown over the years to serve over 8.5 million people in more than 125 countries.

Jan is the author of Give a Goat, the real story of a classroom in America that gets inspired, by reading the book Beatrice's Goat, to help families in need across the ocean. Jan lives in Westbrook, Maine, but travels the world to talk about "passing on the gift."
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As the daughter of the founder of Heifer International, you've probably been surrounded by inspirational stories of giving throughout your life. Why did you choose to tell the story of the children in Maine, who raised money to buy a goat? What was it about that particular story that inspired you to tell it?

I was a teacher for many years.  My favorite students were middle-school children.  Often, they are very idealistic at this age.  When a great teacher captures the spirit of giving and ties it with her curriculum, that’s a good story. 

When I discovered that Mrs. Rowell captured her fifth grade students’ imagination, to help poor children go to school, and incorporated this vision with a math unit, I knew it was magical.  There are plenty of stories, and we have tons of stories in Heifer’s work, about children and other cultures, but few stories about the relationship between children in the US and those in the developing countries. Give a Goat establishes the relationship.

Give a Goat is not just about helping others in need, but it's also about a community coming together to help raise money for people all over the world. Can you talk briefly about the power of communities?

A unique value of Heifer International is "passing on the gift," which is a key approach not only to ending poverty but to establishing sustainability for many generations.

Heifer assists communities through training and gifts of livestock.  Families that have learned the importance of working in community will stay together and expand their work beyond the three years Heifer works with them. We see Heifer communities establishing micro-credit, dairy and grain cooperatives, making sure every child is educated, bringing women into leadership roles, establishing partnerships, and continuously finding ways to insure prosperity.

We also see examples of mending the wounds of war, as rural communities are sometimes comprised of both sides of civil wars, such as it happens, for example, in Albania, Kosovo, Armenia, El Salvador, the Philippines, Cambodia, Rwanda, etc.  

Communities, with the right kind of training and future visioning, can turn poverty into prosperity, work for justice, and diminish the instinct for war.

Give a Goat definitely has a powerful message that I think will help make a difference in the world. When you were writing the book, what message did you hope to get across to readers?   

Telling children and adults about hunger and poverty without providing a way to genuinely help is wrong and renders feelings of despair and/or helplessness. Sometimes people throw money at the situation and feel removed thinking, “Those people are not us, are not our neighbors.  We’re lucky we’re not them.”

But, when children, and adults too, discover a unique way to help, a relationship is established and we as educators, parents, and students become excited about assisting with whatever resources we have.  Working together on a project, often in classrooms, civic organizations, and congregations, helps us make a difference and expand our neighborhoods. Philanthropic projects, begun at an early age, help us work together to become responsible in a world of great need.  The “I-Me-Mine Generation ” can become a “We-and-Us-Together Generation.”  This is the way to turn greed into compassion and usher in a new age of world citizenship. 

In writing Give A Goat, I wanted to lift up the joy of children working together to make a difference for other children in our world.

I'd like to switch gears for just a minute and talk about reading. The mission of my personal blog [The Well-Read-Child] is to help parents, teachers and others instill the joy of reading in the children in their lives - because I firmly believe that knowing how to read and also LOVING it can change lives. Are you an avid reader, and if so, what are some of the books you've read recently?

I’ve been reading books focusing on agriculture and food systems:  Michael Pollan’s books, The Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food.

Jeffrey Sachs’ The End of Poverty, Lester Brown’s Plan B, and  Paul Hawken’s Blessed Unrest are accounts of how collectively we must, we can, and are, changing our environment and our world. 

Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.  Kingsolver’s book reminds me of my family's sustainable farm in Indiana during my childhood; and Elizabeth Gilberts’ Eat, Pray, Love is inspiring as she describes her very personal year-long journey in turning from helplessness and dependency to empowerment and caring for others.

What were some of your favorite books growing up?

I read all of the biographies written for children I could find at the library. They were either orange or blue books, a whole row of them at the library: Florence Nightingale, Thomas Edison, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Elizabeth Baker Eddy, Jane Adams.  I especially loved the stories of women.

At Christmas time, before TV, we’d huddle around the fireplace as my father read Christmas stories.  Our mother would peel apples in a blue bowl and give us slices as we, my four brothers and myself, listened. 

The thing I like the most about Give a Goat is that, instead of just talking about the importance of helping those in need, it actually offers real-life, doable activities. What are other ways kids can get involved with their communities and give?

Many classrooms and whole schools throughout the US and in several international countries participate in education and reading incentive programs to help raise funds for Heifer’s work.  Learning about what students can do to help other children while they read is a real joy.  Learning and reading is the work of children, and if they can be assisted to turn their work into a reality and make a difference in our world, they become both philanthropists and motivated students!

This past year, high-school students filmed Heifer’s work in the Yunan province and shared the story with their parents and community, raising over two million dollars for Heifer's work in China.

Youth in 4-H club, in Poland, learned the care of goats and production of cheese and yogurt, which they then marketed to the villages, for special events.  The funds earned were donated to purchase equipment for a children’s hospital.  

In Armenia, a project provides training in animal husbandry for youth in after-school programs. They then pass on their gifts to other youth in the bordering nations of Georgia and Azerbaijan - an amazing combination of skills acquired, meaningful work, and peacebuilding.

Heifer’s work in providing training and livestock, as well as the pass-on requirement, creates prosperity and instills a spirit of giving in youth, who become aware of a wider world and their role as responsible world citizens.

With the economy causing people to tighten their purse strings, a lot of families may not have as much money to give to charities as they might have had in the past. Do you have any suggestions for other ways people can help?

Our project partners have said, “Thank you for the gift of a fishing pole.  Our families are no longer hungry and poor.  But look around the pond and see thousands of people waiting for their fishing pole.  Do you also notice that the water is polluted and running out of the pond?  Until you educate yourself and your children about the root causes of poverty, you are not making the big difference.”  Heifer International has heard this message and has created a strong education program.  We know that it is very important to educate our children about the issues of hunger, poverty, and the environment and their role in restoring a healthy world.

Children might raise money like the students did in Give A Goat, or they might help in other creative ways (I have to say, though, there’s nothing quite like gathering a group of students together to raise money for a goat!). They can also help by sharing the story with others in their school and community.  

Do you have plans to write any other books for children?

I’ve been thinking about writing a children’s book in the context of Heifer’s cornerstones for just and sustainable development, i.e. the values and ideas that make Heifer's projects empowering and sustainable.

Do you have any final thoughts?

Working together in community is powerful and fun.  I love seeing schools create gardens as part of their curriculum.  Last fall, a school in Maine created a garden and greenhouse to raise produce for their school lunch program and for the education of their students and their parents!  This is an example of one community working together in a very exciting way. The possibilities for making a difference are endless.

*Jill Tullo writes about children’s books and literacy on her blog The Well-Read Child - where a longer version of this interview, with photographs, first appeared on Dec 13, 2008.

Posted February 2009

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