An Additional Message from Letter Writers at First Presbyterian Church

There are many ways to get the letters from your Offering of Letters to Congress. The preferred and most common method, of course, is to have each writer put his or her letter in a white envelope and address the letter to their congressperson in their own handwriting. A second option is to put all the letters in one big manila envelope and hand-deliver or mail them to the local congressional office. This is what First Presbyterian Church in Albuquerque did with the 70 letters that the congregation wrote on May 3-10.

Kirsten Marr, the head of the Missions Committee at the church, organized the letter-writing activities at the church on the two Sundays. She had an additional message for our members of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. She reminded them that Bread for the World members were going to be on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, June 9, which is Lobby Day (and that constituents from New Mexico would be calling on that day to ask them to protect and expand child nutrition programs).

"I wrote that note on the back of each of the manila envelopes that I mailed to the two senators and the representatives," said Ms. Marr. "Anything to catch their eye and get them to open our letters. I mail all the letters to each individual p in one large envelope to the local addresses."

Incidentally, as of May 23, six churches in New Mexico had written a total of 786 letters to Sens. Tom Udall and Martin Heinrich and Reps. Michelle Lujan Grisham, Steve Pearce and Ben Ray Lujan. The totals from a seventh church were pending. Three churches in Albuquerque,and one each in Gallup and Truchas are planning their Offering of Letters during the summer months (two for the first time). Two others in Santa Fe were planning their letter-writing Sundays on a weekend in early fall (date TBA). We are hopeful that more churches in New Mexico (especially those that have organized an Offering of Letters in the past, will participate in the Feed Our Children campaign. It's not too late to plan a letter-writing Sunday! See full schedule.