Town Hall Meetings: Coming to a Community Near You!

Photo by Flickr user Comedy Nose.

With the presidential election fast approaching, there will be no shortage of stump speeches, fundraisers and “personal” emails from the candidates.  These may not be the best forums for voicing your opinion, but there is one platform that is ripe for making concerns about hunger and poverty known—the town hall meeting.  

A town hall meeting is an informal public meeting where everyone in a community is invited to attend, voice opinions, and hear from public figures about a particular subject or subjects. Attending one of these meetings is your right as a member of the community, but it can be nerve-wracking if you haven’t gotten your talking points together to effectively engage your member of Congress.  

Bread for the World now offers useful resources for bringing hunger and poverty to the forefront of these meetings. They include tips on how to get your Congress member’s attention and quick and powerful facts about hunger and poverty. You can also find ideas for taking things a step farther—guidelines for writing letters to the editor, scheduling a meeting with your members of Congress, and publicizing responses to your questions using social media.  

While poverty and unemployment in the United States reached record rates between 2008 and 2010, the rate of food-insecure households did not rise. This is largely due to the success of anti-poverty programs like SNAP that help people get back on their feet in times of heightened need. Overseas, U.S. funding for medication helps prevent more than 114,000 at-risk infants from being born with HIV each year. Additionally, more than 33 million people affected with HIV since 2004 have received counseling. Unfortunately, programs that support hungry and poor people in the United States and abroad risk grave cuts as Congress continues work to reduce the deficit. 

It is more vital than ever for you to take action and lift your voice for hungry and poor people, and town hall meetings are perfect platforms to do so. Ask your members of Congress to create a circle of protection around programs that provide vital support and nutrition to vulnerable people in the United States and around the world. Visit Bread’s Elections Matter page for more resources to ensure that hunger and poverty are top priorities this election season.

Kristen Youngblood Archer is the media relations specialist at Bread for the World.