By Stephanie Byrnes

What if today you went home only to find a straw hut where your once brick shelter stood? Inside the hut, you find no running water, no electricity, and definitely no central heat and air. Would you be able to function without the everyday expectations known as luxuries in many of the world’s countries?

What might surprise you is that people from all over the country travel to Perryville (Perry County) just to experience this kind of culture shock. Whether through tours or complete global immersion experiences, students and adults alike are finding that their experiences at the Heifer International Ranch in Perryville instill in them a new knowledge and understanding of world hunger and poverty.
Internationally, Heifer Project works toward the end of world hunger through donating livestock and teaching sustainable farming skills to poor families and villages. Within our own culture, however, the Heifer Ranch works toward that goal by simply educating people and raising awareness of the reality of hunger in the world.
Solely teaching Americans about poverty and hunger is not enough, however. At the Heifer Ranch, information on the undeniable hardships in some countries is presented through experimental, hands-on initiatives. 
The Global Village, for example, is a simulation of shelters that can be found around the world, and students even have the opportunity to experience spending the night in one of these meager houses. Also, the livestock on the ranch shows visitors what goes into raising the animals given to impoverished families and what those animals can provide for them. 
These complex activities are only possible, though, with the help of many volunteers like Wanda Eason of Conway. A former elementary school teacher and a seven-year tour guide volunteer at the Heifer Ranch, Wanda was drawn to the mission of the ranch through school field trips. 
“The purpose at the ranch is to change people’s lives, in that you change how they view the world,” she stated. “At the ranch, my students and I would watch the classroom presentation on hunger and poverty, we would ride the hayride, and then we would walk through the Global Village. I just loved the idea. I loved the mission of Heifer International and the Ranch’s purpose to educate people on the poverty that seems so far removed from us in the United States.”
With more than 28,000 visitors to Heifer Ranch every year, volunteers like Wanda realize the impact they can have on our nation’s understanding of poverty and what we can do to help. “We receive testimonials all the time about the experiences people have on the Ranch. Youth groups and school groups will email us, telling us how much their students were impacted by the demonstrations and information they received at Heifer,” she said.
What might be unknown to many here locally is what a true jewel this Ranch is in our area. Not only is the 1,200-acre Ranch only one of three Heifer Teaching Facilities in the nation, but it is also the largest and a tourist attraction for groups from all over the country. 
“We have groups every year from Virginia, North Carolina and even New York.  Families will be on their way from New England to somewhere in California, and take their journey through Arkansas just to experience the Heifer Ranch,” Wanda explained.
Wanda was also very excited about some news she recently received about a new Heifer facility going up in Little Rock later this year. The Heifer Village is the name of the upcoming facility, and while it will be very different from the experience at the Ranch, the mission will be the same. 
“The new facility will not have the rural setting you get at the Ranch and the Ranch will continue to do what it’s doing, but this new facility is going to need a lot of volunteers to run that program. So if that is something anyone is interested in doing to serve their community, it would be a wonderful opportunity to really make an impact globally.”
The Heifer Ranch may not be directly providing food for the hungry people in the world today, but as Wanda knows, education can go a lot further than any single gift. “Heifer International makes a difference in people’s lives,” she said. “So this is my way – my very, very small way – of being a part of that.”