Albuquerque Offering of Letters Workshop on March 15

Photo from Bread for the World

The time has arrived to start thinking about the 2014 Offering of Letters workshop, and to help you plan your letter-writing Sunday (or weekend), we have scheduled our usual workshop in March at a familiar location.

St. Andrew Presbyterian Church
(conference room)
5301 Ponderosa Ave NE
Saturday, March 15,
9:30 until about Noon

We are proud to say that 18 churches participated in our Offering of Letters in 2013, generating more than 1,200 letters. We hope to at least mach, if not surpass, those numbers in 2014.

This year's Offering of Letters will center on reforming food aid, a concept that has strong bipartisan support. (There is a description below). Many partner organizations will be joining us in this effort, including CARE, Oxfam America and The ONE Campaign. Because of that, we have invited Jasmine McBeath and Kathy Chavez from  New Mexico Oxfam Action Corps to join us at the Offering of Letters workshop to tell us how their organization is approaching food aid (and some other of their local initiatives). There is also the possibility that a representative from CARE Action Network will also join us. 

About this Year's Offering of Letters
For many decades, the United States has been a global leader economically, diplomatically, and militarily. The same is true in the humanitarian arena. Our federal government often sends assistance in the form of food aid. Now there is an opportunity to reform the federal government's food-aid programs so that funds are used more effectively and efficiently.

It is time to update the government's 1950s practices to enable it to respond more flexibly and faster in a 21st century, globalized world. Changes to the food-aid programs would allow food aid to benefit 17 million more people each year — at no additional cost to U.S. taxpayers.
This year's Offering of Letters focuses on much-needed reform to U.S. food aid. Learn about the United States' role in global aid, and why reform is so critical. Then, write to your members of Congress and urge them to enact much needed reforms to our global food aid programs.

Together we can change policy and ensure continued, improved assistance to millions of hungry people around the world.

There will soon be much more information in the 2014 Offering of Letters site