The holidays are only a week away, and relatives will be celebrating Chanukah, Christmas, or Kwanzaa with their families. We buy presents and wrap them, or send gift cards for their use. What about an alternative gift that they can really use?

An ancient Chinese proverb states: Give a man a fish, and he can eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he will eat for a lifetime. Giving your family and friends money or gifts is an excellent way to show you care, but how about giving them a very unique gift instead - the opportunity for a better job?

Many people with foreign degrees work in low-paying jobs in the United States. Persons with a Bachelor Degree or higher may be working in minimum-wage jobs because they haven’t started the process for obtaining the U.S. equivalency of their educational credentials through a foreign degree evaluation. Your assistance may be exactly what these persons need in order to get established in a good job or career.

If you need more information about helping someone get a foreign credential evaluation, visit www.thedegreepeople.com. The experts at Career Consulting International are committed to helping you, your family member, or your friend, get the most from their university education. Learn more about the requirements for educational evaluations today.

We promised to keep you posted on how the U.S. military responded to the challenge issued by Career Consulting International. It must have taken a little while for the word to get out, because we had no responses in August. With that in mind, here is an update on the foreign education evaluations for September.

So far this month, we have been asked to evaluate foreign degrees for two members of the U.S. armed forces. We are hoping to have the privilege of completing an educational evaluation for a third individual this week. Although this does result in a 200 percent increase in our results from last month, we are still far short of our goal.

In early August, Ms. Danzig released a statement to the press offering U.S. equivalency evaluations free of charge to members of the U.S. military. She authorized her company, Career Consulting International, to complete 50 evaluation reports free of charge each month. So far, we are 48 - or perhaps 47 short of meeting her challenge to the American military.

So if you know anyone who received a foreign diploma or degree and is a member of a branch of the United States military, please encourage them to contact CCI for a free evaluation of their educational credentials. Don’t let them miss out on this valuable opportunity because they didn’t hear about it in time. Help us thank them for serving so bravely!