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Hunger Justice Leaders Converge in Washington

They came from 34 states throughout the country. They included students, professors, pastors, administrators, fundraisers, food bankers, social workers, and scientists. They represented more than 30 different denominations and churches across the religious spectrum. More than one-third of the group are people of color.

What they have in common is what binds them together. These 18- to 35-year-olds share the passion, faith, and willingness to make a long-term commitment to ending hunger. They are Bread for the World's new Hunger Justice Leaders. (Click here to view photos from the event.) 

From June 14-17, Bread for the World hosted the first class of Hunger Justice Leaders. This group of 75 participants—chosen from 350 applicants—traveled to Washington, DC, to investigate the biblical and spiritual foundation and to gain the organizing skills for a life of seeking justice for hungry and poor people. Their travel expenses were paid by Bread through the generosity of individual donors and churches eager to fund this innovative program. In return, by accepting the invitation to participate, they agreed to use their talent, skills, and energy for engaging their home communities in hunger issues for the next 12 to 18 months.

While in DC, the Hunger Justice Leaders heard from Capitol Hill policy makers and pollsters, analysts, experienced organizers, and religious leaders from across the country. They explored ways to use new technologies and media opportunities to educate others and lead them to advocacy. They also took turns role playing for the culminating event, Bread for the World's Lobby Day on June 17. That day they took their newly sharpened skills to Capitol Hill to speak with their representatives and senators about hunger and the Global Poverty Act.

That "defining moment" put everything into perspective for Keats Alexander, 20, from the Bronx, NY. 

"It was my first time on Capitol Hill, and I was a little nervous. People say you won't be heard if you try to speak out. But I saw that's not true.

"I could go up there and tell my member of Congress what matters to me. Lobby Day planted the seed in my heart that something can be done, that I can do something."

His own Christian faith offers no other choice than to do what he can to fight hunger, Keats says.

"Jesus told us to feed the hungry. I don't have the financial means to do that physically. But I can do my part by using my voice, by speaking out." 

He's wasting no time. Each Hunger Justice Leader was asked to draw up a specific plan, tailored to his or her talents, situation, and capacity, to carry out the advocacy they learned at the event. Keats will begin by organizing an Offering of Letters on August 6 at his church, Walker Memorial Baptist Church in the Bronx. He also hopes to make a short documentary for YouTube on the offering and his work with Bread.

"The Internet connects us with people across the country, around the world. Someone Googles 'hunger' and maybe my video could come up. That person and I may have nothing in common, except we're thinking about these issues. Maybe that's enough to connect us, and a way for me to pass along what I'm learning," Keats says.

"We're stronger when we work as a collective body. We can do more to help people that way."

That was one of the goals of the event—to build a new network of hunger activists and equip them with the skills they need.

"We began our search looking for the best and brightest young advocates, and we're confident that we've found them," says Jim McDonald, Bread's vice president for policy and program. 

"They brought an incredible energy and spirit. And they're returning to their communities with concrete plans for carrying forward the work of Bread for the World in the months ahead."

According to Keats, these new leaders are also keenly aware of their responsibilities to hungry people, and their roles as Hunger Justice Leaders. He talked about this with his three roommates at the event—young men from Indiana, Ohio, and Oklahoma.

"Bread has invested a lot in us with this event. They paid for our travel, our food, where we stayed. They brought people in to talk with us, to teach us. It would be a crime if we didn't go back home and do something after all that," Keats says.

Three Hunger Justice Leaders are featured in the July episode of Breadcast, Bread for the World’s podcast. Listen online through iTunes, or at www.bread.org/podcast. We’ll also be giving updates on activities from the Hunger Justice Leaders throughout the year in Bread.

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From Welfare to Work to Bread for the World

By Karen Jefferson

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.
– Jeremiah 29:11

My story echoes those of many other young single moms who become pregnant and must care for a child with no job, no skills, and no support. I'm sure some people will argue that I could have gotten a job. That's easier said than done when you are in that position. In my situation, welfare was the only sensible option. It was my saving grace in more ways than one.

I am passionate about helping less fortunate people, and having been on welfare has emphatically strengthened the way I feel. The experience humbled me tremendously and put a lot of things in perspective.

I found myself on welfare shortly after graduating from high school, and I was in the system for close to 10 years. I had two children while on welfare, one at the age of 19 and the other at 22. I always knew that I would not be on welfare forever, and refused to believe that I would be caught up in the welfare trap for another 10 years.

In order to break free, I knew that I would have to go to school and acquire job skills. So I did, taking extensive computer training. I put my all into it because I knew that my life and the lives of my children depended on it. I proudly graduated at the top of my class. I landed a job working as a senior administrative assistant making $29,500 a year. That's a big jump from the $3,800 a year that I was making while on welfare.

My welfare stint happened about 10 years ago. Today, I am a 38-year-old proud mother of three beautiful girls who inspire me every day to keep moving in the direction that God is leading me. I know that without God's guidance I would not be here today. I'm also the wife of a wonderful husband who I feel was sent to help me get to the place that God has destined me. My husband is the support that I so longed for when I was younger.

I am currently working as the executive assistant to the president of Bread for the World. Bread has been one of the leading advocates in the fight to improve the welfare system.

I want to thank God (for I know where my help cometh). I also want to thank the taxpayers and Bread for the World members who advocated for funding for the welfare program over the years. I'm going to go on record saying that, one day, I will repay every penny that I borrowed from the government when I was on welfare in the hopes of helping someone else. That is my mission today!

On her own time, Bread for the World staff member Karen Jefferson developed and runs a Web site, www.fromwelfaretowork.com for people "seeking motivation, inspiration, and knowledge" while living on welfare, struggling to get off welfare, and ultimately moving from welfare to work.

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Model Your Passion for Ending Hunger

Let the world know where you stand by wearing a Bread for the World t-shirt, tote bag, or lapel pin. Also available: a nifty scroll pen to keep the Millennium Development Goals and Congress' address right at your fingertips. These items offer a good opportunity to begin a conversation about how to end hunger in God's world. To order the items pictured, visit www.breadstore.org.

The Bread for the World Store is Open 24/7

 Did you know that Bread for the World has an online store? Visit the store at www.breadstore.org. Here, you can order a variety of advocacy resources, Hunger Reports, books like Hunger for the Word, and Bread for the World items such as t-shirts, tote bags, lapel pins, and pens. We accept credit cards through our secure server. Why not start by ordering materials for this fall's celebration of Bread for the World Sunday?

Elections Resource Now Available in Spanish

Our resource for 2008 elections work is now available in Spanish. This free resource, Las Elecciones son Importantes: Manual para Participar en las Elecciones del 2008, offers tools for raising the concerns of hungry and poor people during this fall’s congressional and presidential campaigns. Both Las Elecciones son Importantes and its English version, Elections Matter, are available at www.bread.org/elections.

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Moving Foreign Assistance into the 21st Century

As Bread for the World focuses on more and better foreign assistance during this year's Offering of Letters, we have been developing a more detailed picture of what effective foreign assistance looks like.

How can poverty-focused development assistance—and the myriad other U.S. policies that affect hungry and poor people—do a better job? What examples illustrate the things we are doing right and should expand? How can our weaknesses be improved?

Our goal, as always, is to advocate for policy change and allocation of resources that will produce long-term solutions to hunger and poverty.

Bread for the World is taking an active role in a new coalition formed to address these kinds of questions. The Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network (M-FAN) launched its proposal, “New Day, New Way: U.S. Foreign Assistance for the 21st Century,” on June 10 at a standing-room-only briefing in the House Foreign Affairs Committee Room. The network’s staff will be housed at Bread for the World.

Bread for the World’s goals for foreign assistance reform include making poverty reduction the primary focus of U.S. development assistance, elevating the importance of international development and global poverty reduction as U.S. foreign policy goals, and increasing the resources available to do this vital work.

The Farm Bill Is Now Law

The U.S. farm bill was finally enacted into law on June 18, 2008. After a long legislative process that included passage by both the House and Senate, delay due to a clerical error, vetoes by President Bush, and votes to override the vetoes, the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008 is now law. It expires in fiscal year 2012.

Bread for the World members worked long and hard to make the new farm bill fairer to struggling U.S. rural and farm families, people in the United States who are hungry or at risk of hunger, and poor farmers around the world. The final law includes a significant increase—approximately $10.3 billion over 10 years—in U.S. nutrition assistance. The Hunger-Free Communities Act, which was a focus of our Offering of Letters in 2005, was also included in the final version.

Unfortunately, the bill maintains the status quo on commodity payments for generally wealthy farmers. It does not set the new direction for agriculture we need, especially in light of the global hunger crisis. However, our efforts changed the public and congressional debate about the farm bill, made nutrition the most critical component of the bill, and highlighted the unfairness of our commodity policies, which had previously passed with little input from anyone outside the Agriculture Committee.

Your efforts made a difference and put us in a strong position as we continue to work to bring about a more equitable farm bill. Thank you for your work on the farm bill and on the Hunger-Free Communities Act through Bread’s Offerings of Letters.

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Hunger Crisis Affects Millions Around the World

A hunger crisis continues to grip the world right now. The great majority of the world's poorest 1 billion people have suffered a serious reduction in their already miserable standard of living. 

Poor people in developing countries spend up to 80 percent of their income to buy food, usually basics such as wheat, rice, or corn. The cost for these grains has more than doubled since 2006. The poorest people are coping by shifting to one meal a day and by eating famine foods: roots, grass, mud cakes. 

The hunger crisis poses a serious setback to many countries and threatens to erode progress made against hunger and poverty in recent years. The World Bank estimates that soaring food prices are driving an additional 100 million people into poverty. 

In early June, Bread for the World President David Beckmann traveled to Rome to attend the High-Level Conference on World Food Security.  The event drew 30 heads of state and thousands of officials from nearly all of the world's governments. 

In his capacity as president of the Alliance to End Hunger, Beckmann was one of only three nongovernmental representatives allowed to speak before the plenary. He argued that the response to the world hunger crisis should include efforts to build political will by strengthening institutions that push for policies to help hungry and poor people. 

"Congress approved and President Bush signed a supplemental appropriations bill that includes $1.8 billion to deal with the hunger crisis. But 36 developing countries will spend at least $60 billion more on food imports this year than they did in 2006," Beckmann says. "Our response is not commensurate with the scale of this crisis."

As part of our response, Bread for the World launched "Recipe for Hope: Responding to the Global Hunger Crisis," an online campaign that ran from Mother's Day to Father's Day. Thousands of people signed up to learn more about the causes of the hunger crisis and ways they could take action. Hundreds of phone calls and emails have reached members of Congress. Senators and representatives are hearing from their constituents that they need to urgently respond to the global hunger crisis.

This crisis will last awhile. The causes are varied and complex, including rising fuel prices, weather and climate change, and misguided government policies like the lack of investment in agriculture research and development and mandates for corn-based biofuels. There are plenty of opportunities for the world to respond now and in the future.

To hear more about the Rome summit, see our new video series, “David Beckmann Reports,” available at www.bread.org/reports.

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June Events Bring Activists to Washington

Hundreds of Bread for the World activists traveled to Washington, DC, this June. On June 16, 50 board members and other leaders came together for a Faith in Action event focused on two themes: faith encountering the political process, and philanthropic support for these encounters.

Participants heard reflections on opportunities in our country's political life to make a difference for hungry and poor people from Ambassador Tony Hall; Henrietta Holsman Fore, administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development; and Cynthia Halverson, president of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Foundation.

Robert Dole, former senator and current Bread board member, also addressed the group. Sen. Dole recently won the World Food Prize, for his lifelong work against hunger. He presented a check to Bread representing a portion of his prize. 

The following day, Lobby Day, these leaders joined nearly 300 Bread for the World members and friends from 34 states—including Hawaii—to visit Capitol Hill. In 180 meetings (63 with Senate offices, 117 with House offices), they reminded members of Congress that the United States needs to do its part to respond to the unfolding global hunger crisis. Members of Congress and their staffs heard a united voice of support for the Global Poverty Act and a $5 billion increase in poverty-focused development assistance for 2009.

Carol Kreamer and others from Missouri prepared for Lobby Day by organizing two June Offerings of Letters that generated more than 500 letters. One of these took place on the final morning of the annual Missouri Conference of the United Methodist Church.

"I'm sure many people just wanted to go home on that Monday," said Kreamer. "[But] I told the conference that my granddaughter and I would personally deliver their letters if they wrote them right then and there."

Kreamer and her granddaughter, Celia Lamprecht, (pictured at right bottom) presented all the letters to the offices of Sens. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) and Christopher Bond (R-MO). They also brought along photos of friends in Mozambique who are affected by malaria: the Nhantumbo family, including 4-year-old Carol, and Kreamer's colleague, Laurina Osseia, who died of complications from malaria in 2006.

"Making the statistics real was one of the challenges of our visit," said Kreamer.

Jeffrey Joe and Patricia Carter (pictured in the top right photo with Sen. Crapo) are in Bread's first class of Hunger Justice Leaders. One of their Lobby Day visits was with Sen. Mike Crapo (R-ID). Joe observed that his first-time visit to a member of Congress might have been a fairly uncommon experience for the senator as well.

"Idaho is a small western state, and there is a sense that the federal government doesn't do a whole lot for us. Getting more resources for global hunger is probably not the usual thing that constituents come to talk to Sen. Crapo about. But he listened and carefully looked at the Global Poverty Act legislation," Joe said.

“I think the take-away message is that you don’t have to be apathetic. You can have your voice heard about things that are important to you.”

See more photos from Lobby Day.

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Make Hunger a Priority in This Fall’s Elections

To make lasting progress against hunger, we must have leaders in Congress and the administration who will take effective action. The Nov. 4, 2008, elections are our chance to choose such leaders. Bread for the World is now sending presidential and U.S. Senate candidates a binder of information on hunger and poverty with a questionnaire asking which policies they support to help solve the hunger problem.  

The most recent polling from the Alliance to End Hunger indicates that nearly seven in ten U.S. voters (69 percent) believe the government is spending too little to reduce hunger in the United States, up from 55 percent in 2002. An equal number believe the U.S. government should do more to respond to the global hunger crisis. Candidates for public office must respond to these concerns.

The results of Bread for the World’s candidate questionnaires will be posted on our Web site after Labor Day. Check back to see what the presidential contenders and U.S. Senate candidates told us about their commitment to reducing hunger.  

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Lift up the concerns of hungry and poor people in this fall's election season.

• Order or download Bread's Elections Matter resource for action (in English or Spanish) at www.bread.org/elections.
  
• Put hunger on the agenda of congressional and presidential candidates. Join the Bread Election Action Team, BEAT Hunger 2008, by visiting www.bread.org/elections. 
  
• Write or call your senator(s) and your representative if they are running for re-election this fall. Remind them that voters support action to reduce hunger in this country and around the world.

U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515

U.S. Senate
Washington, DC 20510

Capitol Switchboard: (202) 224-3121

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