Writing Letters in the Church Hall and at an Awards Ceremony

Photo courtesy of  Ellen Buelow

Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary Catholic Community in Albuquerque had its Offering of Letters on the weekend of March 18-19. Two other churches in New Mexico also organized letter-writing on that weekend, joining three other churches that have scheduled their Offering of Letters as of the end of March.

Parishioners at Holy Rosary participated actively in writing letters to Congress this year, as they have in many years past.

Bread for the World's 2017 Offering of Letters is focused on urging members of Congress to make funding decisions that put our country and the world on track toward ending hunger. We want Congress to fund and protect programs such as SNAP, WIC, international poverty focused development assistance, and tax credits for low-income workers.

Ellen Buelow, who organized the Offering of Letters at Holy Rosary, took some of the sample letters that she used at her parish to a Bread for the World display table at the annual Lumen awards ceremony sponsored by the Dominican Ecclesial Institute (D+E+I) the following Sunday. The display table included materials from the OL entitled Doing Our Part to End Hunger (download the guide). A few more letters resulted from this effort.

Highlighting the work of Bread
The D+E+I event provided the opportunity for a reunion.  Former Bread board member Ann Sims attended the ceremony. Ann served on the board in the 2010s. The picture to the left shows Ann (to my left) and Sue Slankard (to my right). The D+E+I honored me with the Lumen Ecclesaie award, providing me the opportunity to speak about the great work of Bread for the World over the past several decades.

The Interfaith Hunger Coalition also set up a display table at the conference, and receiving the award gave me the opportunity to speak about how a group of people of faith came together to provide a space for the faith community to discuss ways to work together to address hunger and poverty in New Mexico.

Pictured at left are two members of our steering committee, Sarah Rahman Muhammad from the Islamic Center of New Mexico and Brenda Sinfield from First Presbyterian Church.