Nourish Our Future

        On Tuesday evening I attended the launch of “Nourish Our Future,” Bread for the World’s new initiative to combat hunger in four specific ways over the next couple of years. The campaign will seek to: 1) expand the Child Tax Credit for working families; 2) enhance global nutrition programs; 3) address food insecurity among college students; and 4) fully fund and modernize the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC). About a hundred Bread members from around the country (plus over a thousand on Zoom) gathered in a meeting room at the US Capitol Visitor Center to listen to Rev. Eugene Cho, president of Bread for the World, various activists, and Members of Congress from both sides of the political aisle talk about the problem of hunger and these four possible remedies.

        Hanging over the festivities was the cloud of uncertainty conjured by recent attacks on the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and efforts to streamline (or purge, depending on whom you ask) federal agencies that administer domestic and international feeding programs. Despite these concerns, Cho and the other speakers struck a hopeful tone. An organization that has been committed to advocacy for the last half-century, Bread for the World knows that a) nothing good comes without significant effort; and b) it is surprising how often initiatives that seem to have no chance of success have become victories because of the dedication, faith, and tenacity of 300,000 Bread members all over the United States. When you have good ideas, an unwillingness to back down, a community of like-minded persons, and the ever-present assistance of the Spirit of the living God in your corner, good and surprising things tend to happen. Here’s hoping they will happen again.

        My train was delayed, so I arrived in Washington late and had to hoof it pretty briskly from Union Station to the Visitor Center to get to the event in time, but once there I was able to connect with other Bread members from Pennsylvania who are also dedicated to ending childhood hunger in our Commonwealth and beyond. It was inspiring to be in a room full of persons who are committed to the same goal and to hear from elected officials who are resisting the tide of hyper-partisanship to join together to work on behalf of hungry children, students, and families. Hunger should never be a partisan issue. It’s a human issue, but we Christians and other people of faith recognize that it’s more than that: it’s an issue on which God is calling us to divine-human partnership. God is already on board with (and completely gung-ho about) the notion of distributing the divine abundance of the world to all God’s children, but God will not do it without our cooperation. In my theological understanding, God cannot do this work unilaterally because of God’s deep commitment to partnership and our pernicious tendency to resist God’s holy promptings. We can’t sit on our hands, expecting God or anybody else to take on this work; we must get some skin in the game ourselves.

        To this end, during the campaign launch Tuesday night I signed a pledge to conduct an Offering of Letters at our church this spring. You will remember that we did such an offering in 2023 when the topic was the reauthorization of the Farm Bill. In May we will once again put pen to paper to urge our elected officials to do their part to nourish our collective future. I hope you will be a part of it.