PSA Week: Bread for the World

While I've got your attention, I figured we'd keep up the theme of "good stuff people are doing out there."

One of my very favorite girlfriends has recently taken a job with Bread for the World (you'll see in the sidebar I've added a link to their main page, and also one to their blog).

I wasn't really sure what they did until I went to see her in Dayton a few weeks ago. (In all fairness, I may still not be totally sure what they do.) Just as a start, I think I can boil it down to this:

In many of our churches, we offer winter homeless shelters, we volunteer to serve meals at shelters, we donate canned goods to local food banks. Those are all important things to do, they have to be done, but they're band-aids on the bigger problem of poverty and hunger. Getting rid of hunger requires systemic change. That's where Bread comes in. Through advocacy, education, and direct lobbying of government officials, we can make policy changes. (This is, after all, a government for the people, by the people, and of the people.) Oh, and Bread for the World is completely non-partisan.

If you might be interested in contacting someone to speak with your congregation, or would just like more information than I can give you, here's a list of representatives.

PS- The esteemed Sarah Rohrer, MDiv, tells me that I only forgot one thing: their current election work to go out and ask questions at town hall meetings on behalf of poor and hungry people to get that on candidates' radars. Important stuff, too.