Give a gift that really matters

Published 6:00 pm Wednesday, December 7, 2005

Instead of junk for relatives, buy a cow or help

build a latrine.

Gift-givers who want to buy meaningful “wow” presents are turning to the Alternative Gift Project catalog.

Now in its third year, this brainchild of the Social Action Committee of Cedars Unitarian Universalist Church offers more than three dozen choices from 21 local, national and international nonprofit organizations.

Buyers supply the funds and the organizations do the rest, supplying an array of items, from family cows to high-energy meals for malnourished children to toiletries for an area domestic violence shelter.

The offerings impart goodwill toward donors and recipients – and no one has to wrap or ship a thing.

By filling out a form and writing one check to the church, islanders can give family and friends something that really makes a difference in someone’s life, said Carrie Klein, a project founder and co-chair of this year’s project.

“The first year we only used local organizations,” Klein said. “Then people started asking for an organization that they know about, so we started looking for those. Islanders wanted to give these gifts to people who live outside the area and wanted something they would know.”

Doctors Without Borders is one organization that fulfills that wish.

“(Islanders) completely trust it. They know it does good work,” Klein said. “People feel really positive about the Heifer Project, too.”

The Alternative Gift Project has raised more than $35,000 since its inception. Local organizations – such as food banks and the Ometepe Sister Islands Association – continue to be popular choices.

New this year are PAWS of Bainbridge Island/North Kitsap, the Lambda Legal Defense Fund, Habitat for Humanity’s Operation Home Delivery and the United Nations Children’s Fund.

The Uganda Water Project is another life-saving group.

“We did the math and came up with this: For $12, you can give clean water to 10 families (in Uganda’s Kaberamaido District) for a year,” Klein said. “And International Rotary money matches local Rotary money raised.”

So far, 32 wells have been drilled thanks to Rotary money.

Klein acknowledges that “giving is down all over the place.” But, she said, this is giving and receiving at the same time.

“The last two years, Ometepe has had a gift that was “kind of expensive,” said Klein, yet wholly unique.

“You could build a latrine,” Klein said. “Several people last year and the year before plopped down $125 to build (them).”

New this year is a less costly option: a $5 donation will provide a month’s supply of milk – six days a week – for a preschooler on Ometepe, Bainbridge’s sister island in Nicaragua.

“With $2 for the card, you’ve got a great gift for a teacher,” Klein said.

For an extra $2, a handsome, handmade card featuring artwork by young people at the Special Needs Foundation of Bainbridge Island accompanies each gift.

An enclosure states, “A generous donation has been made in your honor” and describes the organization that will receive it and what it will provide. The cards have proved so popular that they are being sold separately this year (see box).

A $35 donation to Bainbridge-based Clear Path International provides a below-the-knee prosthesis for a land mine survivor in Southeast Asia.

Dozens of these have been purchased through the Alternative Gift Project.

“It’s pretty humbling, really,” Klein said. “It’s such a small amount of money to do such remarkable things.”

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Good tidings

Alternative Gift Project gifts will be sold until Dec. 31. Catalogs, with order forms, are available at Island Fitness, Eagle Harbor Book Company and Pegasus Coffee House, or download one at www.cedarsuuchurch.org. Packages of blank cards (six for $10) are available at Stephens House and will be sold on Sundays through Dec. 18 at the Playhouse, between Cedars Unitarian Universalist Church services from 10 to 10:30 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. to noon.