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Act Now

2019 Offering of Letters

• Call (800-826-3688) or email your members of Congress and urge them to cosponsor the Global Nutrition Resolution (H.Res.189/S.Res.260) and also fund global nutrition in the international affairs budget.
• Congress has yet to pass a budget for fiscal year 2020 and is operating under a continuing resolution until Nov. 21. In the meantime, both chambers have drafted versions of an international affairs budget. The House version does not increase funding for nutrition. The Senate version includes an additional $5 million compared to last year, bringing its total for nutrition funding to $150 million. We are urging Congress to provide as much funding as possible for global nutrition.
• The bipartisan Global Nutrition Resolution acknowledges that progress has been made, thanks to strong U.S. leadership and a bipartisan commitment, but more needs to be done if we are going to eliminate malnutrition. If your member of Congress has already cosponsored the resolution, thank them. You can view a current list of House cosponsors (H.Res.189) here, and a list of Senate cosponsors (S.Res.260) here.

For more information on this issue:

• The 2019 Offering of Letters: Better Nutrition, Better Tomorrow
• The U.S. Contribution to Ending Hunger

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

New 2019 Offering of Letters Resources

Find the most up-to-date sample letter here (DOCX).

If you are looking for a video to introduce the 2019 Offering of Letters to your church or organization, consider using a video short from Rev. David Beckmann of his recent trip to Ethiopia. You can find the video here, or view all of the video shorts from his travels in Ethiopia and Guatemala here. You can also view “Accelerating Global Nutrition: Lessons from Nepal,” which is a short video that lays out the crisis of malnutrition and how your advocacy is making a difference.

Journalist and author Roger Thurow was the featured guest in a special September webinar on global nutrition called "Ending Hunger through Advocacy and Story." Listen to the recording.

Many of you have been asking where you should report your Offering of Letters events. You can report letters here with the online feedback form.

For leaders interested in conducting an Offering of Letters workshop or adult forum on global nutrition, the organizing department has developed a PowerPoint presentation that you can be accessed here or in the Offering of Letters toolkit.

Publishing a letter-to-the-editor (LTE) helps educate members of Congress about hunger issues. If you would like to write an LTE on global nutrition, find a template here.

Activists in Action

Global Nutrition Focus of August Recess Meetings

Continuing to push for the passage of a global nutrition resolution, Bread members visited lawmakers in their home districts during August recess.

More than 300 people (representing 37 cities and towns) attended a Bread for the World meeting at Noblesville First United Methodist Church in Indiana to hear Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.) state his support for global and domestic nutrition programs.

“Working on global hunger and food insecurity is both a national security issue and a moral imperative for the United States,” Young said.  “With the support of hundreds of concerned Hoosiers with Bread for the World, I’ve been able to use my position on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to elevate these humanitarian issues.”

After the meeting, Bread members were able to speak with Young one-on-one and discuss with him the importance of global and domestic nutrition programs, especially for children. 

As part of a year-long effort, Bread has been advocating for a bipartisan global nutrition resolution.

Both the House and Senate have introduced its own versions of a Global Nutrition Resolution (H.Res.189 and S.Res.260). To date, there are more than 125 total cosponsors for the resolutions.

Bread and the bipartisan group of members of Congress leading these resolutions hope a bipartisan Global Nutrition Resolution will pass given that there are so many Democratic and Republican cosponsors in both the House and Senate.

The resolution’s passage would provide increased funding for programs that boost nutrition for mothers and children in countries struggling with hunger. Climate change and civil conflict have fueled an alarming rise in hunger. Half the population of Yemen faces near-famine conditions.

In Guatemala, nearly half of all children suffer from chronic malnutrition, which is one of the main drivers of migration.

As urgently as it is needed, increasing funding for global nutrition will require Bread for the World to redouble its efforts this fall.  The president and some members of Congress continue to push for cuts in programs that have proven effective in reducing hunger.  The growing budget deficit puts pressure on those areas of the budget that lack support.

That is why meetings with lawmakers such as Young are so important. At another meeting, this time in Wisconsin, Zach Schmidt, a Bread senior regional organizer, and Pastor Lawrence Kirby II, a member of the board of directors at Bread, met with Rep. Bryan Steil (R-Wisc.-1).

The meeting was scheduled by the ONE Campaign and Bread was invited to participate. Schmidt and Kirby provided the congressman with a copy of H.Res.189 and asked him to cosponsor the resolution.

They also provided Steil with a copy of Roger Thurow’s, “The First 1,000 Days,” which included a personal note by the author.  Schmidt said he was hopeful Steil would cosponsor the resolution.

Matt Gross, Bread for the World’s director of grassroots organizing, summed up the outpouring of advocacy during the August recess by saying: “Our network of people in churches and other local groups really came out to voice their support for accelerating global nutrition.”

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
• Conducting an Offering of Letters

Issues-related pieces:

• Hunger and Poverty State Fact Sheets
• Fact Sheet: Why We Need $150 Million for Global Nutrition Programs
• Hunger by the Numbers (2017)
• Fact Sheet: Fortified for Life. How the U.S. Government Supports Global Nutrition
• Briefing Paper: A Multi-Sectoral Approach to Nutrition. Assessing USAID’s Progress
• Poverty-Focused Development Assistance (PFDA) 101
• The McGovern-Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition Program
• Getting to Zero Hunger by 2030: Race, Poverty, and Hunger
• Mass Incarceration: A Major Cause of Hunger
• Border Policy: Addressing Root Causes of Hunger and Immigration
• Fact Sheet: Hunger and Poverty in the Indigenous Community
• Fact Sheet: Hunger and Poverty in the African American Community
• Fact Sheet: Hunger and Poverty in the Latino 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