Heifer committed to helping out in the Arkansas Delta

Leaders from Heifer International and the U.S. Department of Agriculture gathered Monday, Jan. 30, with community leaders in Hughes, Arkansas, to celebrate Heifer's commitment to working in a USDA StrikeForce area.

The StrikeForce Initiative is designed to help relieve persistent poverty in high-poverty counties by accelerating USDA assistance while working closely with Community Based Organizations. USDA is currently piloting this initiative in 137 counties in Arkansas, Georgia, and Mississippi.

Heifer International recently launched the first phase of the Seeds of Change project, which aims to improve the income of small farmers in areas of Appalachia and the Arkansas Delta. It also aims to make healthy foods more accessible to hungry families in the United States.

"Of all the gifts Heifer can offer to a community, the most meaningful is opportunity-an opening for people to craft their own future," said Pierre Ferrari, President and CEO of Heifer International. "Hughes is one community that has seized that opportunity and shouldered the responsibility that comes with such support."

Heifer will be working in several Delta counties: Woodruff, Monroe, Cross, Crittenden, St. Francis, Lee, Phillips, and Prairie counties. All of those save Cross and Prairie counties, are part of the USDA's StrikeForce Initiative.

In today's event, Ferrari, along with USDA Assistant Secretary for Administration Pearlie S. Reed, offered a commitment to impoverished areas of the Arkansas Delta. Other participants included Gary Hughes, St. Francis County Judge; Lawrence Owens, Mayor of Hughes; Dr. Edmund Buckner, University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff; and state Sen. Jack Crumbly, D-District 16.

Heifer International, along with the USDA, has found that rural America is disproportionately poor, hungry, and underserved. Heifer has a long history of helping families in the most impoverished parts of the world to lift themselves out of poverty and into self-reliance. Heifer's new project, Seeds of Change, targets the neediest sections of the United States, in hopes of bringing that transformation to its own backyard.

About Heifer International

Heifer's mission is to end hunger and poverty while caring for the Earth. Since 1944, Heifer International has provided livestock and environmentally sound agricultural training to improve the lives of those who struggle daily for reliable sources of food and income. Heifer is currently working in 40 countries, including the United States, to help families and communities become more self-reliant. For more information, visit www.heifer.org or call 1-800-696-1918.