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Act Now

FARM BILL

• Call (800-826-3688) or email your representative and tell them to write a farm bill that helps put the United States on track to end hunger in our country and save millions of lives overseas.
• The House Agriculture Committee has released its draft of the farm bill. The bill maintains and improves international food aid programs. However, it also proposes changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) that would put millions of Americans at risk of hunger.

For more information on this issue:

• How the U.S. Farm Bill Can Help End Hunger
• Bread for the World Statement on the 2018 House Farm Bill

Global Food Security Act

• Call (800-826-3688) or email your members of Congress and urge them to co-sponsor the Global Food Security Reauthorization Act.
• Lawmakers have introduced the Global Food Security Reauthorization Act (H.R. 5129/S. 2269) in both chambers. Reauthorization will strengthen U.S.-funded global agricultural innovation and build up the political will needed to end global hunger and malnutrition in our lifetime.

For more information on this issue:

• Briefing Paper: Mind the Gap - Nutrition to Bridge Humanitarian and Development Efforts
• March Webinar: The Global Food Security Act

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

Results: 2017 Offering of Letters: Doing Our Part to End Hunger

With the passage of the fiscal year 2018 spending bill, our 2017 Offering of Letters wraps up with a victory. Not only did we not see drastic cuts to anti-hunger programs, but thanks to your advocacy, we saw slight increases in summer EBT and food aid. In 2017, churches and individuals across the United States sent more than 176,000 letters, 164,000 emails, and made 32,000 calls to Congress, urging lawmakers to do their part and pass a budget that puts us on track to end hunger.

Upcoming Offering of Letters workshops and events in the following regions:

Many of our Bread teams across the United States have events planned. To find out if there is an event scheduled near you, see Bread for the World’s online event calendar.

Activists in Action

Organizing Through Ecumenism

When the Bread Indiana Leadership Team met in early March for an Offering of Letters workshop, they had two goals: Get at least 50 churches to join a multi-church Offering of Letters and persuade Indiana’s members of Congress to cosponsor the Global Food Security Act (GFSA).

They can check one of the goals off their list.

U.S. Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.) added his name to the cosponsor list for the Global Food Security Act (S. 2269), a week after his office was flooded by roughly 45 calls from the Indianapolis workshop participants.

The legislation—passed in 2016 and up for reauthorization this year—sets the successful U.S.-led approach for increasing global food security and nutrition through programs like Feed the Future. Matt Gross, director of Bread’s organizing department, said building a strong bipartisan list of cosponsors was key to the 2016 passage and will be equally important again. “The more cosponsors leadership sees on a bill, the more likely it is to come up for a vote and pass,” he said.

Including multiple issues is not business as usual at a traditional Offering of Letters workshop, which usually aims to teach participants how to facilitate a letter-writing event. However, the Bread Indiana team is thinking outside the box.

“The leadership team was looking for an opportunity to use the power of the voices gathered to make an immediate impact and building the GFSA list is a big priority for us right now,” Gross said. “Bread for the World advocacy has been growing in Indiana because they are organizing an ever-growing number of voices into targeted action—and it’s paying off.”

One Bread leader who understands the power of multiplication is Charlie Gardner, a member of the leadership team. Gardner encourages multiple churches to work together and combine letters. Last year 42 congregations in central Indiana participated in a joint ecumenical Offering of Letters, delivering 3,630 letters in-district. He’s aiming even higher this year.

“We are hoping that we will have at least 50 congregations this year,” said Gardner, who was happy with the workshop’s turnout, which included many representatives from congregations. In the next two months, churches will hold letter-writing and blessing events and then representatives will reconvene to hand-deliver most of the letters to Indiana’s members of Congress.

Fostering Christian unity is the calling that drives Gardner to come back each year and bring even more congregations along. “When we work together doing what the Gospel calls us to do, then we are not just building stronger relationships across denominations, we are building stronger faith communities based on understanding and not fear,” said Gardner.

Whether it is mobilizing around the GFSA or organizing letters about the U.S. budget, the Indiana team has figured out a winning formula that combines faith, a dedication to ecumenism, and a commitment to strategic action.

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