The Great Cow Tag Race is a Travel Tag race from the 2011 Sonoma County GeoRally in Sonoma County, California, to the 2012 Sonoma County GeoRally.  Participants in the race itself purchase and activate Heifer Travel Tags which are then shipped directly to Moozer, the event coordinator, to be picked up by event participants and released into geocaches.  There are also non-race contests for cachers who’ve purchased their own Heifer Tags for releasing into the wild on their own.

The purpose of the race & contests (or “cowtests” as we like to call them), as well as the Heifer Tags themselves, is to promote the work of Heifer International, a charity active all over the world.  Heifer International provides agricultural stock and knowledge to program participants, who enter into a covenant when selected to “Pass the Gift”: to pass on the first offspring of whatever stock they’ve received (and the knowledge) to someone else in their community.  So Heifer International is a true self-replicating charity: a single gift of livestock and knowledge that it gives to a needful person is then replicated and amplified as it is passed on to more and more people in the community.  Heifer has literally transformed the landscape of poverty in countries around the world, helping families regain their capacity to live beyond the next meal.

April is “Pass the Gift” month, a month in which Heifer asks its supporters to spread the word of Heifer International’s work.  The Great Cow Tag Race is Jackalgirl’s and Moozer’s geocaching answer to that call.

*With apologies to Jeff Smith