Why We're Gathering in June
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Bread for the World Founder Rev. Art Simon, left, speaks with activists at the June 2005 National Gathering.
Rick Reinhard photo |
God is moving in our time to liberate hundreds of millions of people from hunger, poverty and disease.
Who is joining this movement?
Veteran hunger leaders and women's groups. Bread for the World leaders in their twenties and thirties, college and seminary students and faculty, campus ministers. People returning from mission trips and looking for a next step. Church members who have held Offerings of Letters—some for 20 years, some for the first time. All are preparing to descend upon Washington, DC, June 9-12.
Sowing Seeds: Growing a Movement, The Gathering 2007 will bring together thousands of people of faith ready to participate in God's liberating action to end hunger and poverty in this country and around the world. Participants will come together to be inspired, to build and strengthen relationships, and to learn from one another.
"With The Gathering 2007, we are really ratcheting up our efforts to bring together large numbers of people eager to fight hunger and poverty," says David Beckmann. "We want you to be a part of this big, diverse group of committed people. We want you to know you're not alone in doing this work.
"This event will equip you with the information you need to be a strong advocate for hungry people. You will act on this knowledge while you're here, with a trip to Capitol Hill. And then, when you get home, you'll have the information and support you need for your advocacy efforts."
Together, we will engage with candidates at the Presidential Forum on Hunger and Poverty, bringing these important issues into the national election spotlight. We will join together at Washington National Cathedral for the second Interfaith Convocation on Hunger. There, national leaders of Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu and other faith groups will call on the president and Congress to join them in renewing our nation's commitment to end hunger.
And, we'll take all this learning and inspiration to Capitol Hill on Lobby Day, to speak out for the most vulnerable people in our nation and around the world.
Join this movement! Plan now to bring yourself, your family, and groups from your church, your campus, your community to Washington in June.
A limited number of scholarships are available for those who need financial assistance to attend The Gathering 2007.
For highlights of The Gathering, information about scholarships, and to register online, please visit www.bread.org/gathering2007.
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Clinton Raises $1 Million for Bread for the World
By Chris Herlinger
Copyright 2007 Religion News Service. Used by Permission.
New York, NY – Former President Bill Clinton has challenged the U.S. faith community to make the fight against global hunger and poverty the type of defining issue that can affect the outcome of state and national political races.
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BFW Board Member Terry Meehan (left), BFW President David Beckmann and President Bill Clinton in New York.
Amy Sussman photo |
"That's what you have to do about hunger, make it a voting issue," Clinton said February 28 at a New York City benefit for the anti-hunger advocacy organization Bread for the World.
Clinton said the political pressure from those who are committed to a single issue can be strikingly effective, and praised Bread for the World and other faith-based groups for spearheading an initiative to reduce debts owed by the world's poorest countries. The former president highlighted the moral and ethical need to fight hunger, as well as the cause's pragmatic results. Clinton said foreign aid can benefit the United States, that it is "less expensive [for the U.S. if it builds] more partners and creates fewer enemies."
Clinton avoided any partisan remarks at the event, which drew a number of New York religious and business leaders, including Manhattan financier and former New York Stock Exchange Governor Terry Meehan, who hosted the event.
In an interview following the benefit, Bread for the World President David Beckmann praised Clinton as an "ally on the issues of fighting global poverty" and said the former president's appearance was an example of the growing concern and commitment over global hunger.
Clinton’s appearance, Beckmann said, helped raise $1 million for Bread for the World, a nonpartisan ecumenical grassroots organization based in Washington, DC.
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Let’s Pick Up Where Dr. King Left Off: In Washington
By Rev. Billy Kyles
At the time of his death, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was working on hunger and poverty issues for the entire country. In the words of the prophet Amos, he knew that economic justice must now roll on like a river and civil protest for the rights of poor people like a never-failing stream.
We began gathering the poor people of the nation to do something they had never done before: come to Washington. After all of the speech making, we were going to build tents on the National Mall and live in them in protest, until this country did something about poverty.
Martin took the black face off of civil rights and economic rights. He went to Appalachia and saw the reality of poor whites. He went to the barrios and saw the reality of poor Latinos. He often said at that time period, this country is spending $500,000 to kill one Vietnamese and $54 per person on poverty in America. This country can do better than that.
I remember when we were in the poorest county in America, in Marks, Mississippi. He saw children in Marks with bloated stomachs as if we were in a Third World country. He saw newspapers packed against the wall to keep the weather out. And he wept.
When we first invited him to Memphis to help with the garbage workers' strike, he didn't get the message. His staff said, "We just don't have time, we're behind on work on the poor people's campaign."
However, Martin said that the garbage men were a part of this coalition. They worked hard every day and simply did not make enough to live. Martin said that we were taking them to Washington with us. The poor people's campaign was supposed to be one of the greatest advocacy efforts ever made to reverse the tides of injustice in this great nation. However, that dream was cut short and has not yet come to light.
Let's pick up where Dr. King left off. Let's go to Washington. We're not going to ask you to build tents. However, we are asking you to help build a movement. Let's use this political clout that we now have. This June, we can all be a part of God's justice for the poor as it rolls on like a river into the halls of Congress.
Rev. Billy Kyles has been the pastor at Monumental Baptist Church in Memphis for 47 years. To learn more about Rev. Kyles and his work, please see “From the Field” below.
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A $1.4 Billion Success for One Spirit
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Family members and home-based caregivers in Mangua, Kenya, learn how to prepare nutritious meals for their relatives with AIDS.
Richard Lord photo |
Bread for the World members worked hard throughout 2006 on our Offering of Letters, One Spirit. One Will. Zero Poverty. We generated hundreds of thousands of letters urging our senators and representatives in Congress to increase poverty-focused development assistance for 2007 so that the United States can keep its promises to hungry and poor people around the world. And in the end, we won a significant victory.
Before the November elections, the Senate Budget Committee and the full House had each approved an increase of approximately $1 billion in development assistance for fiscal year 2007. But the full Senate did not finalize the increase before the 109th Congress ended in December. Instead, international affairs and most other government programs were funded on a temporary basis, through a continuing resolution, at 2006 spending levels.
Bread for the World activists did not give up. We continued to press members of the new Congress for an increase. Finally, in February, Congress passed a resolution that sets funding for the remainder of fiscal year 2007. While most programs were funded at their 2006 levels, poverty-focused development assistance received an increase of $1.4 billion. The president signed the increase into law on February 15, 2007.
Most of the additional funding is for HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment and care in low-income countries. This money will make a significant difference in the low-income countries most affected by the global HIV/AIDS pandemic – many of them in Africa. The increase could enable an additional 350,000 people to receive anti-retroviral treatments (ARVs). These medicines, combined with proper nutrition, allow HIV-positive parents to raise their children, and farmers to continue producing food for their families and communities. They prevent untold human suffering – without the ARVs, up to half of the 350,000 people who need them could die within a year. In addition, the money could help fund prevention efforts and care of children orphaned by AIDS. The 2007 increase also includes $300 million to fight malaria, still a widespread deadly disease in poor countries.
Thank you to all who participated in the One Spirit Offering of Letters and helped secure these additional funds to fight hunger, poverty and disease!
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Spreading the Word on Seeds of Change
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Bread for the World is calling on Congress to better support farmers of modest means and strengthen rural communities.
Hilary Doran photo |
Bread for the World's 2007 Offering of Letters,
Seeds of Change, calls on Congress to make reforms in the U.S. farm bill that will improve the way its resources are allocated – to strengthen rural communities and to better support farmers of modest means, U.S. families who struggle to put food on the table, and poor farmers overseas. Phone calls and staff visits are carrying the message to members of the Senate and House agriculture committees, who tell us they want to hear from their constituents. So BFW activists are writing letters to Congress and educating their communities on the farm bill's impact on hungry and poor people.
Congress is now making decisions on broad budget categories which will give lawmakers a rough estimate for spending in the farm bill. Informational hearings have begun and committee deliberations will begin soon.
The farm bill is complex, and Bread for the World continues to investigate the effects of proposed reforms on hunger in our country and around the world. "Farmers face complicated, uncertain situations," said BFW President David Beckmann during a recent visit to Nebraska, where he grew up. "I met older farmers who were worried that they wouldn't be able to work much longer, farm families who also hold jobs off the farm in order to support themselves, young people who cannot afford to get into farming, and people who had had to sell their farms due to the pressures for farm consolidation.
“At the same time, the counties I visited have significant amounts of poverty and the majority of rural people, who are not farmers, are also affected by U.S. farm bill policies,” said Beckmann. “In some small towns – in Nebraska as in other states -- more than half the children qualify for free or reduced-price school meals. I saw economic development initiatives such as a program which makes loans to rural businesses that couldn’t get conventional loans. We need more of these efforts if rural America is going to thrive. The farm bill is our opportunity to help struggling rural families.”
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Rev. Billy Kyles: Called To Be a Witness
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Rev. Billy Kyles (center), with Rev. Dr. Thurman Echols (left), pastore of Moral Hill Baptist Church in Axton, VA, and Dr. Patrick Ephriam (right), associate minister at Bethel United Way of the corss Church in Danville, VA.
Don Williams photo |
"When Bread for the World and other organizations do letters and anti-poverty initiatives, it is like knocking holes in the darkness," said Rev. Billy Kyles, pastor of Monumental Baptist Church in Memphis, TN. "They are in the civil rights tradition of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr."
Kyles is a founder of that tradition. A civil rights pioneer, he was arrested for sitting in the "white" section of a city bus. His five-year-old daughter was one of the 13 children who integrated the Memphis public schools under police protection. Kyles worked closely with Dr. King. He spent the last hour of Dr. King's life with him and witnessed his assassination.
"Of course other people know that Dr. King was killed, and it affects them, but Rev. Kyles was actually there and he's been able to use his experiences as a guidepost to help people," said Don Williams,
Bread for the World's Associate for Racial/Ethnic Outreach. Mentioning Dr. King's comparison of the money the United States was spending on hunger compared to the Vietnam War, Williams added, "Back then, it was poverty, hunger and the minimum wage, and now, it's poverty, hunger and the minimum wage."
Kyles said that he wondered why he had been there when Martin Luther King was killed. "And then God showed to me why I was there. I was there to be a witness. My witness says, "You can kill the dreamer, but you cannot kill the dream." He has been the pastor at Monumental Baptist Church for 47 years.
And indeed, Kyles is an inspiration to many. Rev. Tyler C. Millner is the pastor of Morning Star Holy Church in Martinsville, VA, which hosted a two-day conference on Bread for the World's 2006 Offering of Letters, One Spirit. One Will. Zero Poverty.
"The presence and words of the good reverend were like dynamite to me," said Millner. "His storytelling of his days and experiences with Dr. King was both educational and inspirational. His coming and being a part of the program sealed my commitment to our becoming a Covenant Church, and my personal commitment." Morning Star Holy Church soon thereafter became a BFW Covenant Church and held its first Offering of Letters.
Therese Gustaitis of the Church of the Holy Spirit in Memphis is a long-term activist on justice issues who heard Rev. Kyles address an Offering of Letters workshop in Memphis. “When Rev. Kyles spoke, it really touched me personally from a justice angle,” she said. “I realized how far we still have to go in Memphis. What he called us to do that day is what God in Scripture calls every church to do every day.”
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Urge your senators and representative to improve our nation’s farm policy so that it better serves hungry people in the United States, U.S. farmers and rural communities, and farmers in developing countries struggling to sell their crops and feed their families.
Unsure who your member of Congress is?
Find contact information for returning and newly-elected members.
Points to make:
- Our current farm policy provides large payments to some farmers but does little to help farmers and other rural families of modest means.
- Our current farm policy also hurts farmers and rural communities in developing countries.
- In the United States, 35 million people live in families that struggle to put food on the table.
U.S. Senate
Washington, DC 20510
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515
Capitol Switchboard: 202/224-3121
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For the complete newsletter in its print version, please contact:
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Publications, Bread for the World
50 F Street, NW, Suite 500
Washington, DC 20001
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Fax: 202-639-9401
Email: publications@bread.org |
