Each year during the period of conspicuous consumption known as Christmas shopping, I try to think of a gift that will not be returned, exchanged or forgotten before next Christmas. One year it was a goat for a poor African farmer through World Vision. Another year it was a sewing machine for a woman in Ghana who wanted to lift herself out of poverty by starting a small business.

This year it is the Children’s Scholarship Fund, started by the late John T. Walton, son of Walmart founder Sam Walton, and the late venture capitalist Ted Forstmann, to help free poor students from failing public schools and offer them a path to a better life by benefit of a private school education.