Bread for the World Partners with the Episcopal Church to End Hunger

Ethanol. Drought. Your grocery bill going up. Rice shortages. Families in Haiti eating cookies made of mud…
 
These are all snapshots of a global food crisis that affects families from Reno to Rwanda. Food banks in Nevada are reporting dramatic increases in the number of people asking for emergency food. Around the world, the situation is even more dire. Due to the soaring cost of food, 100 million people around the world may be forced into poverty. The World Bank estimates that 33 countries are at risk of civil unrest due to food shortages. Many have called this crisis a “silent tsunami.”
 
As Christians, we believe that God's grace in Jesus Christ moves us to help our neighbors, whether they live in the next house, the next state or the continent.  Food is a basic need and it is unjust that so many people go without enough to eat. In that spirit, Bread for the World and the Episcopal Church are teaming up to advocate for real solutions to dramatically reduce hunger around the world. Bread for the World is a collective Christian voice urging our nation’s decision makers to end hunger at home and abroad. By changing policies, programs and conditions that allow hunger and poverty to persist, Bread provides help and opportunity far beyond the communities in which we live.

Bread and the Episcopal Church have been campaigning for the past several years to reduce hunger and poverty by half by 2015 as part of the Millennium Development Goals. This is an ambitious goal, but we believe that together with God’s help, we can end hunger in our time. Doing so will require addressing the root causes of hunger and poverty.

How can you get involved?                                                                                                                                        

Learn – The Episcopal Church has put together God’s Mission in the World, an ecumenical Christian Study Guide on Global Poverty and the Millennium Development Goals. This six-session guide is designed to help you and your church explore the root causes of hunger and poverty, and what you can do about it. You can download it free at: http://archive.elca.org/advocacy/one/mdgguide.pdf

Take Action - Every year, Bread for the World invites churches across the country to take up a nationwide Offering of Letters to Congress on an issue that is important to hungry people. Year after year, Bread members have won far-reaching changes for hungry and poor people. To learn more and sign up for action alerts, visit www.bread.org

(Matt Newell-Ching is Bread for the World’s Regional Organizer for Nevada and 11 other states. You can reach him by e-mail at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or by phone 888-75-BREAD x1)