This year – including at our June National Gathering – we are celebrating Bread’s 50th Anniversary. When we celebrate 50 years, we are not just marking time; we are marking progress – progress against hunger.
The outlook for progress against hunger has not been good lately.
The pandemic set back decades of gains that had been made against hunger and poverty.
The food price crisis, exacerbated by wars and insurmountable debt has prevented us from recouping as quickly as we might.
USAID has been dismantled.
Staff at federal agencies who work on domestic poverty programs for low-income families, such as HeadStart (which helps with nutrition and school readiness for young children) and LiHEAP (which helps low-income households with heating/cooling their homes during peak seasons) have been fired.
Congress has targeted SNAP and Medicaid for deep cuts.
The President’s Budget Request released last week proposes an 83 percent overall funding cut to international affairs spending and the elimination of food aid programs that Bread fought to reform and fund.
Seeing the end of programs and policies that we – Bread members, bipartisan members of Congress, and millions of anti-hunger researchers and advocates – have championed over the years, is painful.
It can be demoralizing. It can make us ask if all our work has been for nothing.
But our work has not been in vain.
Since Bread began, the share of people facing hunger is nearly half of what it was in the 70s.
Bread has helped strengthen programs that enable people to feed their families in moments of crisis and Bread has shaped structures that build resilience and sustainability.
Together, Bread has improved WIC, protected SNAP, made foreign aid more efficient, and improved trade with small businesses in Africa. Bread helped create programs like the Millennium Challenge Corporation, which sets a framework for grants to developing countries for economic growth, and Feed the Future, which boosts nutrition and agricultural development. Bread has promoted policies that account for those most impacted by hunger, such as those living in rural communities, women and children, and communities of color. Bread has secured billions in funding for anti-hunger and anti-poverty programs in the U.S. and around the world.
In 1974, 15 million children under 5 died from malnutrition every year. Today, that’s down to 3 million children. We can acknowledge that this is incredible progress at the same time that we acknowledge that this is still 3 million too many.
That’s progress made because of Bread members across the country gathering together to take action. In each decade we have embraced the challenges before us. We have worked toward goals together. We have met goals together.
And now – to meet this moment – we are setting NEW goals together.
With Nourish Our Future, Bread’s 2025 advocacy campaign, we are casting a vision for policy change that builds on the policies and programs Bread has built and strengthened over the past decades.
Our launch event brought together Republicans and Democrats from both parties to talk about why they care about addressing childhood hunger. It was really remarkable. What other issues have Republicans and Democrats come together on this year? Not many. But they came together for Nourish Our Future because addressing childhood hunger doesn’t have a political party.
We’ve already seen a significant policy victory this year for childhood hunger. In March, the continuing resolution that funds the government for the rest of this fiscal year includes a $500 million increase for the WIC program, which provides vital nutrition assistance to low-income women, infants, and children. What a blessing for the millions of American children who will receive better nutrition because of this bill and funding!
In June, Bread will continue our advocacy on WIC via support for the Modern WIC Act. We will also ask Congress to support global nutrition funding, because the return on investment in nutrition is incredible – for every dollar invested in addressing undernutrition, there’s a $23 return.
We know that progress on nutrition is possible in this political environment.
It’s not obviously possible. It will not be possible without great effort. But it can be done. And I know that because Bread has 50 years of experience making the unlikely into reality. Bread’s vision to end hunger is as prophetic as it is practical.
I hope all of you will join us in June to combine our collective efforts toward addressing hunger. Perhaps now more than ever we need your voice and presence as we speak directly to members of Congress.
If you can’t come to DC, you can still join thousands of others in prayer, advocacy, and giving. There are so many ways to join this movement of action against hunger. In whatever way you choose you invest yourself through the resources that God has given you—your energy, your prayers, your advocacy to Congress, your organizing, your introductions, your financial resources, your expertise—your contribution is important.
Even a seemingly small act of generosity can grow into something far beyond what we could ever ask or imagine. You know the parable of the mustard seed. Whenever we take an action to better our world – that seed grows and our efforts can reach far beyond our own existence.
