Richard Bisbee has got a beef with world hunger. So he`s sending an ox to Nicaragua.
Late last fall, the 16-year-old Palatine resident and Boy Scout veteran needed a service project he could lead in order to earn the organization`s elite rank of Eagle Scout.
Bisbee figured the scouts had their fill of more standard community-help plans.
”I sort of wanted to do something different than cleaning up the parks or making birdhouses for the forest preserve,” said Bisbee, a Fremd High School sophomore.
He found the answer in Heifer Project International, a relief agency that sends livestock to underdeveloped countries.
Bisbee`s church, St. Philip`s Episcopal in Palatine, had raised money at Christmas to send an ox to Nicaragua, whose Episcopal diocese is the companion of the Episcopal Diocese of Chicago.
”I decided to send down the other ox of the team,” he said.
Bisbee led a church committee that sought to raise funds for a second animal with a benefit dinner, entitled ”Ox and Ewe Shall Receive.”
The slogan proved prophetic. The dinner Saturday raised more than $600, enough to pay for not just one ox but two, plus a ewe for good measure.
A herd they`re not, but Bisbee figures it can`t hurt.
”There`s definitely a food problem in the world, and this can help solve it,” he said, ”because the people aren`t just given food. They learn to depend on themselves.”
