Get Involved

Act Now

Global Food Security Act

• Call (800-826-3688) or email your representative urge them to pass the Global Food Security Reauthorization Act.
• The Senate passed its version of the Global Food Security Reauthorization Act (S.2269) with bipartisan unanimous consent. The House is expected to take up the legislation soon. The Global Food Security Act strengthens U.S.-funded global agricultural innovation and builds the political will needed to end global hunger and malnutrition in our lifetime.

For more information on this issue:

• Fact Sheet: Feed the Future
• From the Blog: Help pass the Global Food Security Reauthorization Act

Watch for action alerts. For additional talking points, contact organizing@bread.org or call 800-822-7323.

August Recess

The organizing department is preparing for a busy August recess. Last year, Bread members used the month-long recess to publish numerous letters in local newspapers and meet with over 35 members of Congress and their staff about anti-hunger issues.

We hope to surpass those numbers in 2018! Start preparing early and schedule a meeting with your member of Congress now. For help, reach out to your organizer, read our how-to guide, or watch our June webinar. During the webinar, Clark Hansen, a Bread regional organizer, shares five tips on how to get an August recess meeting with your member of Congress.

Activists in Action

Advocacy: A Message to the Risen Savior

Derick Dailey remembers vividly the moment he realized his voice could have an impact on legislation.

He was still in college and had trained as a Bread for the World Hunger Justice Leader, but advocacy was still just an idea. It wasn’t until he participated in an in-district meeting with his then U.S. Senator Kit Bond, a Republican from Missouri who is now retired, that he realized the power of his voice. During that meeting, the senator agreed to cosponsor the Global Food Security Act.

“For me, that was a moment of inspiration—a sort of a breakthrough moment,” he said.

Although he grew up in the AME Church with its roots in the civil rights movement, Dailey said he didn’t always think that legislative advocacy worked. A senator responding so quickly to a constituent’s request helped change his mind.

Fast-forward a decade later and he is now a practicing attorney, a former member of Bread’s Board of Directors, and a leader in Bread’s Pan-African Young Adult Network. Since that turning point in Sen. Bond’s office, he has never stopped using his voice to impact legislation.

Dailey was on Capitol Hill for Bread’s annual Lobby Day in June to advocate again for the Global Food Security Act. The legislation originally passed in 2016 and is up for reauthorization this year.

“It comes full circle,” said Dailey, with a smile.

Faith and experience drive him to speak up on important issues at every opportunity. During Lobby Day, he and a group of Missouri Bread members saw Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) on the Capitol steps meeting with students. Without hesitation, the group seized the opportunity to ask her to cosponsor the Global Food Security Reauthorization Act. They even got her to pose for a picture.

It was not lost on Dailey that a one-on-one conversation with a member of Congress is a privilege and a testament to democracy. Not every country allows its citizens access to powerful decision makers.

That is something that should never be taken for granted, he said.

When asked what a citizen lobbyist should take with them into a legislator’s office, Dailey’s responded with two words: courage and conviction. “It’s so important for activists to understand that their story has a worth to it—that their perspective is worthy of being heard, especially in this political climate,” he said.

Courage is only one part of the equation though. Leaning on God is the other part, he said.

Dailey summed up what legislative advocacy means to him during a dinner on the eve of Lobby Day. It’s a message to a risen Savior that we are committed to love and serve him. Doing justice and what is right by poor and hungry people is more than just a biblical commandment, Dailey said.

“It is an opportunity to show God how serious we are about our faith,” he added.

More Resources: Activist Tool Kit

The Activist Tool Kit is intended for new and current Bread grassroots hunger activists. It provides a set of how-to sheets for carrying out advocacy and fact sheets on the current issues Bread for the World is working on.

It's ideal as a starter toolkit for new Bread activists or as a set of updates for current activists. Form your own toolkit by printing out some or all of the sheets in the kit.

How-tos:

• How to Conduct an In-District Meeting with a Member of Congress (or the Staff)
• Effectively Using Public Meetings to Engage with Members of Congress
• Writing a Letter to the Editor of Your Local Newspaper
• #ForSuchATime Social Media Kit
• Conducting an Offering of Letters

Issues-related pieces:

• Hunger and Poverty State Fact Sheets
• Hunger by the Numbers (2016)
• Fact Sheet: Get the Facts About SNAP
• Budget 101
• Fact Sheet: Do Work Requirements in Public Programs Work?
• Budget Reconciliation 101
• Budget 101: Block Grants, Flexibility, and Per Capita Caps
• Immigration as a hunger issue
• Poverty-Focused Development Assistance (PFDA) 101
• The McGovern-Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition Program
• Fact Sheet: The Hunger-Medicaid Connection
• The Affordable Care Act 101
• Mass Incarceration and Over-Policing Fact Sheet
• Fact Sheet: Latino Community Hit Hard by Budget Cuts
• Hunger and Poverty in the Latino Community
• Hunger and Poverty in the African-American Community

Biblical resources:

• The Biblical Basis for Advocacy to End Hunger
• The Bible and Immigration Reform
• The Bible and Poverty-Focused Development Assistance
• The Bible and Mass Incarceration
• The Bible on Health as a Hunger Issue