By Joyce Rothermel

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, we provide help and opportunity far beyond the communities where we live. We can end hunger in our time. Everyone, including our government, must do their part. With the stroke of a pen, policies are made that redirect millions of dollars and affect millions of lives. By making our voices heard in Congress, we make our nation’s laws fairer and more compassionate to people in need. 

Bread for the World members write personal letters and emails and meet with our members of Congress. Working through our churches, campuses, and other organizations, we engage more people in advocacy. Each 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 and poor people. As a non-profit, Bread for the World works in a bipartisan way. Our network of thousands of individual members, churches, and denominations ensures Bread’s presence in all U.S. congressional districts. Together, we build the political commitment needed to overcome hunger and poverty. 

The SW PA Bread for the World Team is a regional Bread for the World Chapter. The Bread Team meets periodically at Christian Associates of SW PA, located at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. We host an annual Bread for the World Workshop in the spring and promote the annual offering of letters in area Christian Churches and Congregations, meet with the US Senators and Representatives in their local offices, and attend the annual Bread for the World Lobby Day in early June. 

This year’s advocacy workshop will be held on Sunday, April 19 from 2 – 5 PM in the John Knox Room of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, 616 N. Highland Avenue in East Liberty. Keynoting this year’s event will be John Carr, the founder and director of the Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life of Georgetown University. Carr, who has worked for the US Catholic Bishops Conference, now serves as President of the Board of Bread for the World. 

Carr will introduce the focus of the 2020 Offering of Letters for Bread for the World: seeking to pass binding legislation that will strengthen our government’s leadership on global nutrition, increase funding for those programs and seek an increase in funding from Congress for domestic nutrition programs. 

Three workshop sessions will follow: 

1) Advocating by Effective Congressional Office Visits by Linda Ambroso, Government Relations Professional 

2) Reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act by Ann Sanders, Just Harvest 

3) Pittsburgh Food Policy Council’s Strategic Plan by Sarah Buranskas, Pittsburgh Food Policy Council 

Participants in the workshop will have the opportunity to address letters to U.S. Congressional leaders on this year’s topics and learn how they and members of their churches can get involved in offering of letters and Congressional office visits regionally and in Washington, DC on Bread’s Annual Lobby Day, June 9. 

The workshop is free and open to the public. Our efforts this year are more important than ever, as the current administration’s policies are weakening food security programs domestically. To register, go to https://bread2020. eventbrite.com For more information, contact Myra Mann at 412-882-6252, mannm36@hotmail.com or Joyce Rothermel at 412-780-5118, rothermeljoyce@ gmail.com. 

Joyce Rothermel serves as co-chair of the SW PA Bread for the World Team and has recently been elected to Bread’s national board of directors

NewPeople Newspaper VOL. 50 No. 2. March, 2020. All rights reserved.