VANCOUVER - The fact that Canada has never won an Olympic gold medal on home soil gets the goat of many in this country.

Now a British Columbia student hopes that a Canadian athlete at the top of the podium at next month's Vancouver Games will get goats for many in other countries.

Joel Nagtegaal wants excited fans to channel their enthusiasm into a project that promises to do some good for countries not typically associated with the Winter Games.

Nagtegaal has launched goatforgold.com, a campaign that asks Canadians to donate a goat to nations such as Bangladesh and Zambia every time an athlete from the Great White North strikes gold during the 2010 Games.

The "Goat Canada Goat'' campaign mirrors one Nagtegaal started last year when the National Hockey League's Vancouver Canucks kicked off their playoff run.

"Last time people's generosity blew me away so hopefully the same thing happens this time,'' Nagtegaal, 24, said in an interview.

Last April, Nagtegaal and some friends were discussing how to commemorate the Canucks' playoff drive after a game of roller hockey.

They had already started working on playoff goatees when they - perhaps fuelled by the post-game brewskis - stumbled upon the goat idea.

They wanted to donate 16 goats in all, since 16 playoff wins would make the Canucks Stanley Cup champions.

But the idea quickly caught fire, as one person set up a Facebook group and another created a website dubbed goatcanucksgoat.com.

By the time the drive was complete, 1,073 goats had been pledged and distributed to Kenyan families in need.

Nagtegaal even earned kudos from B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell and said he was touched when he received an email from the African nation.

"If a thousand-plus goats were donated through a Vancouver-based idea, how much could be donated with all of Canada cheering our country on and helping others out?'' Nagtegaal asked.

Each goat costs $34.50 and can be donated through the goatforgold.com website. Nagtegaal said goats were a natural choice because they serve many purposes and can multiply quickly.

The campaign is being handled in conjunction with the Christian Reformed World Relief Committee, the development arm of the Christian Reformed Church.

"It is a wonderful project for women, because they can raise the goats near their homes,'' Kohima Daring, a committee staff member in Bangladesh, said in a statement.

"Goats are relatively inexpensive to raise, so it is a good way for these women to start. They can learn how to care for the animals, fatten them up, then sell them or their offspring to earn money and be able to send their children to school.''

When a donated goat first gives birth, that offspring is then passed along to another family in need.

The committee says goats are particularly important in Zambia, where there is a high number of AIDS sufferers and those stricken with the disease don't have the energy to complete manual labour.

The Goat Canada Goat animals will also be sent to villages in India, Uganda and, once again, Kenya.

Committee spokeswoman Jacqueline Koster was in Haiti last year when residents of that country received goats through a separate campaign after being hit hard by a hurricane in 2008.

"It was just sort of a joyful time in those communities,'' she said. "There was definitely a strong sense of affinity towards Canadians.''

Koster said it can be difficult for those in North America to realize just how vital an asset a goat is.

"We're just so used to banking systems, it's really hard to conceptualize a bank being an actual, living thing,'' she said.

"If you have this goat and it's able to have kids of its own and then you sell those goats and you make some money that way or else you even sell the goat that way, it becomes a piggy bank of sorts.''

With the 2010 Winter Games just under one month away, Nagtegaal said he's pleased 28 donations have already come in.

"We put the goat-o-metre on the website at 100 in the hopes that it will spill out of the top again,'' he said.