279 posts categorized "Advocacy"

In his Jan. 30 opinion piece for The Wall Street Journal, “The Myth of Starving Americans,” Warren Kozak fails to get his facts straight. In doing so, he does a great disservice to the millions of low-income people who honestly rely on school meals and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly food stamps) to feed their families.

Nearly 49 million Americans currently struggle to put food on the table. These families don’t know where their next meals may come from, and on occasion they must skip meals or rely on food that is not sufficiently nutritious. Our federal nutrition programs, combined with the charitable response of food banks and food pantries, keep these families from going hungry.

The number of families struggling to put food on the table increased in 2008 with the start of the recession. But despite increased poverty and unemployment since then, that number has not changed due in large part to increased participation in nutrition programs. SNAP, school feeding programs, and food banks saw increased participation and demand during this same time period. Clearly these programs are meeting a real need.

The school meal information provided by Mr. Kozak was extremely misguided. The data he cited actually shows the number of both free and reduced-price meals, not just free lunches. Additionally, all school lunches — whether free, reduced-price, or full price — are reimbursed in some way by the federal government. School meals are at times the only healthy meal some kids receive in a day.

SNAP fraud rates are at an all-time low, despite all-time high participation. In addition, SNAP already has work requirements for able-bodied adults without dependents. These participants are limited to three months of SNAP benefits in a three-year period. All SNAP participants must go through a time-intensive and invasive enrollment process, as well as biannual evaluations to ensure their incomes or living situations have not changed.

Federal nutrition programs target the neediest in our country and are clearly keeping Americans from going hungry. The vast majority of recipients are not trying to cheat the system but to honestly put food on the table while they regain their economic footing. As Christians called to protect and serve the most vulnerable people among us, we must ensure we get the facts straight and protect programs—such as school meals and SNAP — that help struggling families.

David Beckmann is president of Bread for the World.

+Learn more about poverty in the United States and how you can take action.

Federal nutrition programs are finding ways to connect the people who rely on them with a healthy selection of foods. Photo by Jim Stipe.

I recently wrote about the polarized campaigns and public support for the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly Food Stamps). A reader just sent me a great NPR story focused on these issues and I wanted to share it with you all.

I particularly recommend listening for their interview with Kisha Castillo of Silver Spring, MD. Like so many, Kisha never thought she would have to rely on SNAP, but has become a victim of the stagnant economy. This story reflects what we know is true: SNAP is a lifeline for millions of Americans who are struggling to put food on the table. Check it out here.

Ben D'Avanzo is Mimi Meehan Fellow at Bread for the World. 

+Learn more about SNAP and how you can take action.

"Never doubt a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world.  Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."

-- Margaret Mead, used with permission from The Institute for Intercultural Studies.

Photo caption: A campus group writes letters to their members of Congress. Bread for the World photo. Learn how to hold your own Offering of Letters here.

Two children share a smile in the Dakhla refugee camp in Algeria. UN Photo/Evan Schneider

It can be so easy to put from our minds the plight of the rest of the globe when life here in the States seems to get more difficult each day, between the high unemployment rate, the poor economy, and the general stress that seems to rule our lives.  However, there is a world beyond ourselves and the problems of that world are far greater than we can perceive. 

According to the European Parliament, right now there are 10 million people living in refugee camps.  These are people much like us who have no place to call home, who have gotten used to feeling displaced, without an identity, and who are some of the poorest people in the world.  The term “refugee” is rather broad, but Human Rights Education Associates define refugees as “people who are forced to flee their homes due to persecution, whether on an individual basis or as part of a mass exodus due to political, religious, military or other problems.”  How terrible it must be to be uprooted from all that you know and love, through no fault of your own, perhaps never to see your home again? 

Furthermore, horrible living conditions plague these refugee camps.  Hunger – even starvation – is prevalent among refugees, as well as the spread of disease due to a lack of effective sanitation systems as well as the large amount of people living in such close proximity. These refugee camps are scattered across the globe, located in the war-torn Middle East, as well as famine-ravaged Africa. 

Furthermore, some refugees are refused aid and amnesty from their new countries. For example, stateless refugees from Burma known as the Rohingya, are denied access to humanitarian aid because the government of Bangladesh denies them access. The Rohingya are a religious and ethnic minority, and according to  Physicians for Human Rights, they live in refugee camps, but without official refugee status. As a result, they are denied food, living in huts made of twigs and plastic next to open sewers, and many of their children suffering from malnutrition. This is just one case of many. 

Bread for the World aims to fight against injustices such as these. People of faith and conscience have a collective responsibility to look out for our fellow human beings, be they here or across the ocean. We must alert our members of Congress to the extreme poverty and hunger rampant in refugee camp. 

Bread for the World’s Offering of Letters has a mini campaign with the aim to form a circle of protection around international food aid programs that deliver humanitarian aid to those who most desperately need it.  America is a nation that despite its hardships is still quite prosperous. Let us use the resources we have been blessed with to be a blessing to those who need it most – the widow, the orphan, the stranger, the refugee.

Jael Kimball is a media relations intern at Bread for the World.

Palestinian fisherman work off the coast of Gaza. UN Photo/Shareef Sarhan.

"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little."

-President Franklin D. Roosevelt, from his Second Inaugural Address

If Congress doesn't extend unemployment benefits and the payroll tax cut, current benefits will expire February 29.

Nearly 13 million people are unemployed in our country, and there is only one available job for every four people looking. Congress must extend unemployment insurance, which kept 4.6 million Americans out of poverty in 2010.

But some in Congress have proposed to cut the program. Others want to add harmful barriers that would make it harder for ordinary Americans who lose their jobs to access their unemployment insurance. Some have even proposed paying for extending unemployment benefits by cutting other low-income programs, such as the Child Tax Credit.

Your call this week is critical. Please tell your member of Congress to extend unemployment benefits without cuts and without barriers to benefits.

Use our toll-free number—1-800-326-4941—to call your member of Congress today. If you can't call today, please call no later than Friday, February 10.

This week is critical. Unemployment benefits expire Feb. 29 if they're not extended. Now is the time for people of faith and conscience to take action for poor and hungry people. Call today.

David Beckmann is president of Bread for the World.

+Learn more about poverty in the United States and how you can take action.

"I have the audacity to believe that people everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits."

-Martin Luther King, Jr., from his Nobel Peace Prize speech

Photo by Flickr user   tnarik 

It’s my pleasure to announce the winners of our Haiku writing contest. We had some excellent submissions and you’ll be able to read them all at the end of this blog post, but our winners are:

 First place – Holly Morrison

                Pen touches paper

                Words move mountains, seed meets earth:

                We all rise – like bread

Second place – Scott

                Saying grace tonight

                Forces me to think about

                Those who have no food

Third place – a tie between Judy and Jill Klein

                Circle and Protect

                Defend the Cause of the Poor

                Speak by Mail Today

                -Judy

                Fill the in-boxes

                Of Congress, until members

                Feel hunger to change

                -Jill Klein

Thanks to everyone for their submissions. To the winners, please contact Jeannie Choi, associate editor at Bread for the World by email at jchoi(@)bread(dot)org with your full name and mailing address so we can get your prizes mailed to you.

To everyone else, I encourage you to read through all of the excellent entries and to learn the stories that inspired these haikus at www.bread.org/ol.

The Campaign is On/Let Us Offer our Letters/To God. It Matters. --Adlai Amor

All Entries to Bread’s Haiku Contest:

Words can't be eaten/Ideas won't fill a stomach/But love can do both.  --Bill Beechler

The welcome table / invites all who are hungry/ to a feast of Love.  --Malinda Dunlap Fillingim

Hunger Growls Resound/Hunger for Advocacy/Echoes in D.C. -- Robin Stephenson

Write to Congress Now/Urge Circle of Protection/Advocate for Poor. -- Shayla Price

Fist full of pennies/Heart holds dreams not yet made flesh/Your help my ladder. -- K Annie Powell

longitude is passed / synchronized earth lights left on / pittance for the starved. --Leslie

No justice, no peace/Until all hungry are fed/Bread members act now. --Martha Ward

Offering letters/Circling the poor in love/Faithfully we write. --Pepper Lambie Bauer

Can you hear Hope cry?/Stomachs empty; hearts broken/ God waits for us all. --Cindy Caporaso

Their plates are empty/They have not yet seen His truth/Bread brings love and hope! --Cindy Caporaso

Circle and Protect/Defend the Cause of the Poor/ Speak by Mail Today. –Judy

Power hears Hunger's pleas/Through letters from home and church/Faith linked to action.

Listen to our voices/Faithfully captured in ink/ Share is all we ask. –Regina

Fist full of pennies/Heart holds dreams not yet made flesh/ Your help my ladder. --Karen Powell

Hunger/Cries alone in fear/World shattered by poverty/Letters inspire hope. --Kathy Hunt

I could go all day/But only if i had to/Many have no choice/Must do more than hope/To change life for the better/Give, help, teach, feed. Please. --Joe A

Life can be turned into whatever you imagine/You can be a singer or an actor/You have the desire to make something out of it/You have the implements to do anything with your life/But it depends on how you use that device/You can do demiurgic things with your life/You can make your life beneficial for yourself/You have high anticipations that you never thought you can grasp /Time is alternating/It never hinders/It’s not worth being known /Live for the moment/Life can be a masterpiece /Take a new look at life/And think about it/Is the life you are making the way you really want to make it?/Never stop living. --Chibunma

The time is today/Sharing is not optional/Let's show them His heart. --Cindy Caporaso

What did He tell us?/Love others as I love you./Bread of life for all. --Cindy Caporaso

Letters can break chains/protecting corporations./Freed hands circle poor. --Jill Klein

Your belly is full/millions are malnourished/Just think about that. –Scott

Saying grace tonight/Forces me to think about/Those who have no food. –Scott

Fill the in-boxes/of Congress, until members/feel hunger to change. --Jill Klein

Pen touches paper/Words move mountains, seed meets earth:/We all rise--like bread. --Holly Morrison

Adlai Amor is director of communications at Bread for the World. He tweets in haiku at @adlaiamor.

Photo by Flickr user  Filipe Dâmaso Saraiva

"Hunger denies, wastes, and degrades the gift of life."

-Edouard Saouma, former director general of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) from 1976 to 1993.

Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (CT-3) speaks at a press conference about the importance of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, along with (left to right) Elise Gould, Tara Marks, Donna Cooper, and David Beckmann. Photo by Kristen Youngblood/Bread for the World.

While some politicians have attacked the relevance of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly food stamps) during the ongoing election campaign, today on Capitol Hill a panel of economists, policy makers, and a former food stamp recipient emphasized the life-saving value of the program.

Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (CT-3) was joined by Rev. David Beckmann, president of Bread for the World; Elise Gould of the Economic Policy Institute; Donna Cooper of the Center for American Progress; and Tara Marks, a former SNAP recipient and activist from Pittsburgh, PA. They all gathered to clarify the importance of SNAP benefits for the American people, particularly during a recession.

“Just like unemployment insurance, food stamps bridge the gap to help families make ends meet,” said Congresswoman DeLauro, a longtime SNAP supporter. “As the economy improves and families get back on their feet, the costs of food stamps will decrease again. This is the entire essence of a social safety net.”

Tara Marks, a longtime Bread for the World supporter, said that she agreed with Rep. DeLauro. Marks’ personal experience with hunger and poverty led her to advocate for policies that will help make a difference for vulnerable people.

 “I know firsthand the benefits of safety-net programs because I was once a recipient,” said Marks. “There were times when I wouldn’t eat so my son could. Fortunately, programs like SNAP were available so that we did not have to go hungry for long.”

Watch this video about Tara Marks, and learn how you can contact your members of Congress about creating a circle of protection around programs that help poor and hungry people.

Jeannie Choi is associate editor at Bread for the World. Follow her on Twitter @jeanniechoi.