Photos from Heifer Fair

Volunteers for Heifer International in Albuquerque and Santa Fe organized their first-ever fair in New Mexico on Saturday, October 4 at Menaul School in Albuquerque. They invited Bread for the World and The ONE Campaign to set up a display. Here are a couple of photos from the Bread/ONE (and CROP Walk) table, which were staffed by Marge Williams, Patty Keane, John Foley and Violet Foley.

Laura Casselman from The ONE Campaign also stopped by the table. She was also helping with the PeaceCraft display.

(Thank to to Patty Keane for snapping these photos)



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World Food Day 2008: Choices for a Warm and Hungry Planet

You are cordially invited to

World Food Day
Choices for a Warm and Hungry Planet

Thursday, October 16, 2008
8:00am - 2:00pm

University of New Mexico
Student Union Building
in one of the ballrooms
(same level as food court)



Please join us
*to view the video teleconference with three international leaders
*hear about the links between climate change, hunger and poverty
*learn about strategies to end world hunger
*share your thoughts about how we can help
*contribute to Roadrunner Food Bank
*learn about the Millennium Development Goals
(update presented by Carlos Navarro & guest from Heifer International)

Agenda
8:00 Registration-Networking
8:30 Welcome
Governors Proclamation
Hunger Fighter Recipient Awards
9:00 Panel/Press Conference
10:00 Teleconference Broadcast
11:00 Update on Millennium Development Goals
12:00 Hour Two of Teleconference Broadcast
1:00 Panel on Sustainability, Local Issues
2:00 Wrapup

Teleconferece Speakers
Ray Suarez, Host
Dr. Nancy Birdsall, Center for Global Development
Dr. Siwa Msangi, International Food Policy Research Institute
Mark Ritchie, Minnesota Secretary of State

Click here for biographies (scroll down)

Local Bread members recognized

I want to take this opportunity to recognize two local Bread for the World members who recently received nice recognitions. At its annual meeting this summer, the local chapter of Church Women United honored Kay Huggins with the Valiant Woman award. Else Tasseron's recognition was more subtle. An article published in the Albuquerque Journal on Sept. 28, mentioned several local volunteers who have made a difference. Else was among them.

Kay Huggins
It's easy to forget that Kay Huggins is a pastor. I tend to think of her as just "a regular person," who plays the flute in our monthly Taize service in Albuquerque and helps promote Bread for the World's Offering of Letters at her church. The first time I met her somtime was back in the 1990s when she was part of the musical ensemble backing up a cast from Rio Ranch Presbyterian Church, which was performing the play Lazarus, Bread for the World's musical production on hunger and poverty.

Kay, who is now interim pastor at New Life Presbyterian Church, is also an accomplished author. This year, the local chapter of Church Women United honored her with the Valiant Woman award. Below is an excert from the CWU newsletter:

Her life consistently represents true dedication to her faith and the willingness to take on difficult projects; whether it was being the pastor of a steelmaking town church or starting a new church from an envelope with 4 names on it. After reading her biographical information, it appears everything Rev. Huggins has been or is associated with blossoms and grows

Else Tasseron
I don't know Else too well, but I do know that she has taken an active role in Bread for the World, first at Holy Cross Lutheran Church and more recently at St. Paul Lutheran Church.

In fact, Else took charge aIt the Offering of Letters at St. Paul this past year. The effort produced several dozen letters to Reps. Heather Wilson and Sens. Pete Domenici and Jeff Bingaman. (She is pictured at left at the 2009 Offering of Letters workshop, along with George Huggins of New Life Presbyterian Church).

The article, Call US Crazy But New Mexicans are Actually Concientious, which appeared in the Sunday edition of the Albuquerque Journal on Sept. 28 highlighted the work of several volunteers. (Since the Albuquerque Journal Web site is restricted to subscribers, you won't be able to see the full article when you click the above link).

But here are some excerpts:

A study just out from the University of Cambridge has concluded that Americans' personalities differ according to the states in which they live.

The British university's "personality map" shows which states score highest in each of five broad personality categories: extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism, openness and conscientiousness.

North Dakotans rank highest in the country in agreeableness and extraversion. No surprise there to anyone who's ever seen "Fargo" or taken a Jell-O mold to a Lutheran potluck in Bismarck.

New Yorkers won high marks in the neurotic category.

And the people in all of the land who are the most conscientious? Those who show the most tendencies toward disciplined, compliant, dutiful and responsible behavior?

You guessed it, fellow New Mexicans. It was us.

And this is where the newspaper recognizes Else, in the context of her work with Project Share

It's so easy to focus on our faults. Much better on a clear, cool, fall-is-finally-here Saturday morning to stroll over to Hope's Half Acre, the little garden that sits on the property of Project Share in southeast Albuquerque and see how the eggplants are coming along.

"They're beautiful!" says Donna Epler, who takes care of the garden two mornings a week.

Epler, along with Else Tasseron, shows up dutifully, responsibly, dependably at the garden to weed, water and battle the occasional squash bug and to watch the daily miracles that happen when sun, seed and soil are joined.

Tasseron, 71, had no connection to Project Share when she saw a flier asking for help in the garden, which grows vegetables that are used in dinners for the homeless and food boxes for the hungry.

"That spoke to me," Tasseron said. "I thought, 'Old as I am, watering I can do.'

Turns out she's a meticulous weeder, too. Quietly conscientious about pulling up every last invader.

Heifer-New Mexico invites you to a fair

Volunteers from Heifer International in Albuquerque and Santa Fe have put together what they hope will be the first of many annual local fairs to introduce and showcase the work of their organization. Heifer is one of 100-plus partner organizations in The ONE Campaign

The fair will be held on the grounds of Menaul School, 301 Menaul NE, Albuquerque

This will be a festive day of fun, engaging activities and opportunities of how a person can help end hunger and poverty in our lifetime.

Admission and parking are free

• Games, fun activities and prizes for kids of all ages
• Live animals including llamas, goats, cows, chickens and sheep
• Demonstrations: weaving canning, roping, sheep shearing, etc...
• Global villages of Uganda, Ecuador and Thailand
• Silent Auction and door prizes
• Art Exhibits and presentations by Betty LaDuke
• Life gift market: alternative gifts that keep giving.
• Entertainment: Story tellers, music, dancers, skits, etc...
• Educational booths: Learn more about local and global poverty issues
• Plenty of food and beverages

For more information call (505) 831-2063 or send an e-mail to gridded@yahoo.com

Millennium Development Goals: Red or Green?

We're in the midst of the fall season, and most of the New Mexico chile harvest has started to appear in farmers markets, grocery stores and produce outlets around the state.

The chiles we're seeing are still in their "green" stage, although a few ripe red chiles or green chiles with red streaks are scattered in some of the bins at the local grocery chain. New Mexico chiles, often known in other parts of the country as "Anaheim peppers," are one of the most visible symbols of our state, along with the Zia sun symbol and the roadrunner.

Because chiles are so important to New Mexico and to me personally (see picture of my harvest from several years ago), I would like to draw a connection between spicy peppers and the Millennium Development Goals. A stretch? Perhaps. But bear with me. ...



First, let me explain a couple of things.

The reason why we are putting a special emphasis on the the Millennium Development Goals is because world leaders are gathering in New York today, Sept. 25, to to chart progress on the MDGS. Today, we join Episocopalians for Global Reconciliation and many other people of faith with prayers and appeals to world leaders to take more vigorous actions to bring us closer to meeting these eight targets to end global poverty. While it appears unlikely that we can meet the goal of cutting extreme poverty in half by 2015, we can still take decisive steps in that direction.

Now let me direct you to the official New Mexico state question: Red or Green? If you go to any restaurant that serves New Mexican food, you will invariably be asked which type of chile you would like with your meal. There are three choices: 1) red 2) green 3) Christmas (a combination of both).

I bring this up for the very reason that we are actually given a choice at our favorite New Mexican restaurant. But this is not limited to our dining options. Most of us who live in the U.S., Western Europe, Japan and other wealthy nation have all sorts of choices. Our economic system creates wealth so that we can have choices.

Conversely, many people in poor rural communities around the world do not have choices. You've seen the dire statistics (borrowed from Rev. Mike Kinman's blog):

*1.2 billion people living on less than $1 a day.
*110 million children who aren't allowed even a full course of primary education
*Half a million women a year dying of complications from childbirth and pregnancy.
*A child under 5 dying every three seconds from preventable, treatable causes
*8,000 people (more than died in the September 11 attacks) dying each day of HIV/AIDS

So our ultimate goal in promoting the Millennium Development Goals is to create basic choices for many people around the world, not only to allow them to survive but to create the conditions where they can live a dignified life.

The Bread Thread

Bread for the World is celebrating its 34th birthday this year. Normally, 34 is not a milestone year. Milestone years are normally reserved for 25 or 50. Or you could make the case for 35 and 40. But I feel compelled to put a special marker on year 34.

From my standpoint, there is no major event or "happenstance" prompting me to celebrate this year, but a series of "small" meetings during the past year. Call them "connection" or "reconnection" vignettes, either in person or through cyberspace (specifically that wonderful networking medium called Facebook)

Most of these folks I knew through Bread for the World many years ago but had lost touch. Others I didn't know, but discovered they had a Bread connection. Still others, are Bread people with whom I have stayed in touch, but had not seen in a while.

(And I note that Bread did celebrate Year 34 by unveiling its new logo).

Here are a couple of my stories:

The Office (Pasadena)
Ok, I borrowed the title from the popular television show. But this not about Michael Scott or Dwight Schrute or Jim or Pam. This is about how about a chance meeting related to Bread for the World's office in California.

On the last weekend of August, I volunteered to set up a Bread for the World/ONE Campaign display at Matthew 25, a conference to promote opportunities and highlight the service and social-justice work of churches and organizations in the Albuquerque-based Episcopal Diocese of the Rio Grande.

One of the special guests at the conference was the director of the Seattle office of Episcopal Relief and Development. He had been introduced as a graduate of Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, and I knew a couple of folks who graduated from that institution.

As I went up to his display table to introduce myself, he immediately noted that he was once a staff member of Bread for the World.



As it turned out, this fellow was Brian Sellers-Petersen, who was instrumental in convincing Bread to put the new western regional office in Pasadena and not in Los Angeles proper back in the 1980s.

To make matters even more interesting, Brian asked me if I had heard from his former co-worker in that office, Emily Abbott. As a matter of fact, just a couple of weeks ago, Emily and her husband Zachary hosted me at their home in Altadena! I was in California in mid-August for a work-related trip and a few days of vacation.



Anyway, Emily was the regional organizer for the "Rest of the West (including New Mexico)" at the same time that Brian was covering California. And just like Brian, Zachary was a graduate of Fuller Theological Seminary. Above is a picture of Emily and Zachary that I took at a great botanical garden called The Huntington.



But I would be remiss if I left out two of the current staffers at the Pasadena office, with whom I had a great lunch during my recent trip to California: Holly Hight and David Gist. Ricardo Moreno, Bread's organizer for Latino Relations, also works out of that office. Above is a picture of Holly and David. By the way, Holly's husband, Joel Short, is also a graduate of Fuller Theological Seminary.

Tracks all Over Facebook
Those of us who have experienced the social networking medium known as Facebook are well aware that it can be both a trap and an opportunity. The big danger is that it entices you to waste a lot of time surfing through your friend's groups and photographs. Conversely, this is a medium that is very useful for organizing. For example, I've created three groups that have relevance to our justice work in New Mexico: Bread for the World-New Mexico, The ONE Albuquerque-New Mexico, and Albuquerque Fair Trade City.

Facebook has also allowed me to reconnect or make an acquaintance with several folks with whom I share a history with Bread for the World. First, let me mention Bob Schminkey, who was one of my regional organizers when I still lived in Kansas City. Bob and I have a common vice: we root for the Los Angeles Dodgers (and because of it, we're suffering this season). Speaking of Bob, I became acquainted with one of his Facebook friends, Cynthia Biddlecomb, when she joined the Bread for the World-New Mexico group on Facebook. As it turns out, Cynthia was once a summer intern for Bread.

I also recently reconnected via Facebook with Kim Bobo, who once headed the Organizing department at Bread. Kim, who is executive director of Interfaith Worker Justice, has become such an authority on organizing that there an entry on Wikipedia for her.

Another significant new friend on Facebook is Steve Eulberg, a Lutheran pastor I knew in Kansas City. Steve, a Bread member, was the one who presided over the wedding ceremony when Karen and I got married on Sept. 1, 1990. His wife, Pastor Connie Winter-Eulberg, is also a Facebook friend. Connie sang at our wedding.

And I've also made contact on Facebook with two people, with whom I served on the Bread board: Connie Jaarsma Marty and Rebekah Jordan. Below is a picture of Connie from way back (notice the difference between that logo and the new logo, which Holly and David are holding in the picture above).



Connie and her husband John (also a Facebook friend), were at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minn., at the same ti.me as my wife Karen. John is a state senator in Minnesota.

Other Facebook reacquaintances include fellow Bread members or staffers I knew either back in Kansas City or here in Albuquerque or from a national gathering in Washington: Sherry Thompsen, Edie Lott, Zelinda Welch, Julie Brewer, Marco Grimaldo...

And several New Mexico Bread members are on Facebook: Kari Bachmann, Jon Bulthuis, Bob Riley, among others...

So in the spirit of those new acquaintances and reaquaintances, I say Happy 34th birthday, Bread for the World!

Hunger and the Congressional Elections

Picture this... You're at a town hall meeting with Darren White or Martin Heinrich or Harry Teague or Ed Tinsley or Ben Ray Lujan, Dan East, Carol Miller, Dan Simmons or Tom Udall or Steve Pearce. If you know who all or most of these people are, you are ready to join Beat Hunger NM.

As a part of BEAT Hunger NM, you'll be speaking up to House and Senate candidates about hunger and poverty at town hall meetings and community events - a tactic commonly known as "bird-dogging."

Sign up for BEAT Hunger NM to receive updates on candidate events near you.

Here's how it works...

The candidate finishes her stump speech, and now it's time for Q & A. Your heart is racing as you stand up to the microphone in the aisle... You introduce yourself, and ask your question about what she will do about the 35 million people in our country who are hungry or at risk of hunger... The candidate responds - maybe with an answer you like, maybe not. Your friend in the audience captures the whole thing on video and will post it on YouTube in about an hour. The candidate leaves the meeting knowing that this is an issue she must address if elected.

We will track when many candidates for the House and Senate hold public events and notify you once you've signed up for BEAT Hunger NM. Ideally, two or three (or more) BEAT Hunger NM members will be able to attend a town hall meeting - there's real strength in numbers. We will also help you along the way with tips on how to ask questions effectively, how to organize a group of people beforehand, how to document your experience, and how to follow-up with the campaign.

We invite your creativity too. We'll need guest bloggers, and we welcome short videos of question and answers to post on our Web site. BEAT Hunger '08 participants may also raise issues in the media, meet with candidates for office, and take other actions to let candidates know they have a constituency that cares about hunger. The sky is the limit.

We have set teams in all three congressional districts. In District 2 in southern New Mexico, our coordinator is LaVerne Kaufman, with the help of Ellen Young. In District 3, our coordinator is Bro. Jim Brown, with the assistance from Heidi Ernst Jones and Jane Hanna. Carlos Navarro is coordinating efforts in District 1 and the Senate campaigns. But we're just a handful of people and we need your help.

Thank you for taking the time to learn about this exciting new initiative. Our mission at Bread for the World is to urge our nation's decision makers to end hunger at home and abroad. With your efforts and God's help, we can move one step closer to realizing this vision.

Note: Want to forward this message to your friends? Click here.

Second Graders Urge Congress to Address Global Poverty

Colleen Davidson was one of the members of St. Bede's Episcopal Church in Santa Fe who participated in the church's Offering of Letters this year. As she was writing her letter, she decided to talk to her students about global poverty. As a result, her class decided to write a collective letter to Rep. Tom Udall. Below is the letter. (Click on the images to enlarge them)

Storming Capitol Hill with Pen and Paper

There was no one from New Mexico at Bread for the World's Lobby Day this summer. But that doesn't mean that our presence was not felt on Capitol Hill this year. We made contact with our legislators with a huge exclamation mark!


New Mexicans Write More than 2,200 Letters to Congress
Through the middle of June, New Mexicans had written more than 2,200 letters to Congress as part of this year's Offering of Letters. This is more letters than we've ever written in a single year! A total of 19 churches, two schools and one drama class (along with a few members of the audience) participated in this year's letter-writing efforts.

Of the total, 710 letters were directed to Sen. Pete Domenici, 659 to Sen. Jeff Bingaman, 554 to Rep. Heather Wilson, 124 to Rep. Steve Pearce, and 128 to Rep. Tom Udall. We weren't able to determine to whom the other 68 letters went.

At one event, sponsored by the Center for Action and Contemplation, our efforts also produced a handful of letters to legislators from Texas, Florida, Minnesota, and Illinois. (Pictured above is Erin Duffy from Dallas writing a letter to Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson of Texas).

Our message was simple: Please increase poverty-focused development assistance in the next budget by $5 billion. And to our senators we were asking them to co-sponsor S. 2433, The Global Poverty Act. I'm very confident that the 500-plus letters he had received through mid-May were very influential in Sen. Bingaman's decision to co-sponsor S.2433.

SOME OF THE FOLKS THAT MADE IT HAPPEN
We may yet get more letters this year, but I do want to pay tribute to some of the individuals who already made this year's Offering of Letters a huge success.

LaVerne Kaufman (shown at left with Bread member Kari Bachman) not only led the letter-writing effort at Peace Lutheran Church (Las Cruces), but also supported and encouraged St. Paul United Methodist Church (Las Cruces) as they held their first-ever OL.








Terese Rand Bridges (right) was the lead organizer at St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church (Albuquerque), with help from Deacon Jan Bales and Linda Towle. Pictured with her is Deanna Vick from St. Andrew Presbyterian Church

Larry Brotman, Beth Kissling, and Mark Stein helped organize letter-writing at Church of the Good Shephard- United Church of Christ (Albuquerque). This is the second consecutive year for an Offering of Letters at the church.

In the picture on the left, Mia Jumbo, a Theater student at the University of New Mexico, lay the groundwork for her hunger class and the cast of Hungry Machine to write letters to Congress about global poverty. The director of the play, drama instructor Anna Saggese, also had a major role in the letter-writing effort.

-Center, Kyra Ellis-Moore, organized students at Albuquerque High School to write 220 letters. Read her account.

- Ester Schneider not only hosted our Offering of Letters Workshop in Albuquerque but was the main mover and shaker behind the Offering of Letters at St. Andrew Presbyterian Church (Albuquerque). Dana Bell, (pictured at right) helped with the letter-writing effort at the church.

Bob Riley (right) has frequently managed to get 100-200 letters at First Unitarian Church (Albuquerque). This year the church surpassed 200 letters. He is pictured with Bread for the World western regional organizer Matt Newell-Ching.




















Jane Hanna (left) has led letter-writing efforts at First Presbyterian Church (Santa Fe) for as long as I can remember. Here she is pictured with fellow church member Aurelia Fule.

George Huggins is not only passionate about playing the guitar at his church (and also at our Taize services), but has also led the letter-writing efforts at New Life Presbyterian Church (Albuquerque) for two consecutive years.






Heidi Ernst Jones and Lydia Pendley not only hosted our Offering of Letters Workshop in Santa Fe, but organized letter-writing activities over several weeks at St. Bede's Episcopal Church (Santa Fe). Coleen Davidson, a teacher at Piñon Elementary School (Santa Fe) and a member of St. Bede's, had her class write 21 letters.

Marjorie Williams has been in charge of Offerings of Letters at Trinity United Methodist Church (Albuquerque) for almost a dozen years now. She was assisted this year by Frank and Mona Hyder.





















Virginia Pitts (left) was part of a team of Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary Catholic Parish (Albuqueque) who organized an Offering of Letters over two weekends at the church. The team also included Jeannette Beaudette and Ellen Beulow. The OL produced about 500 letters (WOW!). Virginia is shown in this picture chatting with Carol Holland of New Life Presbyterian Church at the OL Workshop in 2007.

There are many other people who did a fantastic job organizing letter-writing events at their churches. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of them, so I'll just name them: Estella Gahala at First United Methodist Church; Jamie Terra Hawk at La Mesa Presbyterian Church (Albuquerque); Hank Hughes at the United Church of Santa Fe (Santa Fe) Else Tasseron at St. Paul Lutheran Church (Albuquerque); Matt and Amy Keller and Lucretia Tippit at All Saints Lutheran Church (Albuquerque); and John Barton, Rev. Carole McGowan, and Maria Smith at St. Thomas of Canterbury Episcopal Church (Albuquerque). I organized the Offering of Letters at Aquinas Newman Center (Albuquerque) with the help of the Peace and Social Justice Committee and Campus Ministry. We produced about 110 letters at our university-based parish.

A Social Enterprise

When I first met Tim Keller, a candidate running for the 17th state Senate district, he mentioned he had done some work with a non-profit organization in Cambodia.

My first thought was that perhaps he had worked in one of the traditional areas: agriculture, community organizing, water management or even engineering or architecture. But Tim said his work was in the field of information technology. Those involved in the field simply refer to it as "IT."

So the obvious question is: How does this apply to a country without a history of technology? This is something that's more applicable to Silicon Valley not Phnom Penh. But according to a BBC article, Cambodia is pushing to diversify its economy, and Tim's company, Digital Divide Data, is a perfect fit in this context.

DDD is a social enterprise that utilizes a sustainable information technology service model to benefit some of the world's most disadvantaged individuals-those disabled by land mines.

The company offers youth in Cambodia and Laos with the education and training and essential management skills they need to deliver world class, competitively priced information technology global to global clients. DDD has over 500 employees and was ranked by Fast Company magazine as a global Top Innovator. DDD was also profiled in the best selling book The World Is Flat by Tom Friedman.

Partly funded by Global Catalyst, a Silicon Valley foundation, Digital Divide Data is the brainchild of two former McKinsey & Co. colleagues who first went to Cambodia on vacation. They came away determined to help a struggling country to bridge the much-debated gulf between technological haves and have-nots, said an article in the San Francisco Chronicle.

So there you have it. There are many aspects to development assistance, and this is one unique and innovative way to provide economic opportunities in a developing country.

Now let me get back to Tim's story (in his own words)

My life was changed forever when, at the age of 23, I moved to Cambodia and start DDD's operations. At the time I was pondering leaving the world of investment banking and living in San Francisco. A month after learning about DDD I was living in Cambodia as DDD's first President.

I remember my first day, After clinging on to the back of a scooter from Pochentong airport (back when it was more of barn) to our office through the unpaved, dilapidated chaotic roads of Phnom Penh, I arrived at our office and met our first 10 operators....

I lived in Cambodia for almost two years as we grew from an start up to about 120 employees. DDD was the first I ever maxed out my credit card, before we figured out remittance, I'd take out $10,000 for payroll each month and pray Visa wouldn't cancel my card. After my first few months, and a lot of hard work and fair bit of loneliness, I partnered with several faith based organizations and was able to make the operation sustainable.

Tim, who has since been elected to the New Mexico state Senate, has brought his concerns about helping people to New Mexico.

"Today I am a business consultant and spend much of my time volunteering on the boards of several non-profit groups that foster economic opportunities in the Southeast Heights and around the New Mexico," said Tim.

Tim put together a powerpoint presentation illustrating the high financial costs to the state when people do not have access to Food Stamps. The presentation makes the case that by not fully funding the program now, our state will pay more in the long run. "Tim should be a fierce advocate for the issues that we care about," said Janet Page-Reeves, who once led a special Food Stamp Task Force.

(Tim is pictured above with co-workers from DDD in Cambodia and with his companion Dierdre McGinty on election night)

Second Annual Feast for Change

A recent article in the Kenya News Agency speaks in glowing terms about the Kisesini health centre, which has made free health care available to hundreds of residents of the local community of Kyua.

That health clinic was constructed in large measure because of the efforts of local doctor Angelo Tomedi, an Associate Professor in the Department of Family & Community Medicine at the University of New Mexico. Dr. Tomedi built the clinic through his organization called Global Health Partnerships (GHP). The Albuquerque community has come through with strong support for GHP, including a bicycle auction and a benefit last year.

Thanks to the generosity of Scalo Northern Italian Grill, a second benefit will be held this year. Most of the proceeds will go to the clinic in Kisesini, particularly the purchase of an ambulance. Some money will go to GHP's overall global work, which includes health-care efforts in Guatemala. Two other community organizations will also benefit from the fundraiser, the Life Stitches Project Uganda and Peacecraft, a fair trade store.

Below is information on the benefit:

Feast For Change
Sunday, August 10
11:00 a.m.-2:00 p.m.
To benefit a mosaic of projects that reach out to women and their children in developing countries.

Scalo Northern Italian Grill
3500 Central SE (Nob Hill)
Albuquerque

Tickets $50

To purchase or reserve tickets, call Peacecraft at 255-5220
or come by the store at 3215 Central NE
(100% of the profits will go the the three organizations)

Sen. Jeff Bingaman Cosponsors Global Poverty Act

New Mexicans had written more than 1,000 letters to our two senators as part of Bread for the World's 2008 Offering of Letters. The last line of our letter had a simple request for Sen. Jeff Bingaman and Sen. Pete Domenici: Please cosponsor S2433

Here's the description in Thomas, the legislative search engine for the Library of Congress
S2433
A bill to require the President to develop and implement a comprehensive strategy to further the United States foreign policy objective of promoting the reduction of global poverty, the elimination of extreme global poverty, and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goal of reducing by one-half the proportion of people worldwide, between 1990 and 2015, who live on less than $1 per day.

I can't help but think that the 509 letters that were sent to Sen. Bingaman may have had some influence in his decision to become the 19th sponsor of S2433 Click here to see full list of sponsors.

The companion bill in the House was HR1302, which was approved by a voice vote in September 2007. The House bill had 84 cosponsors, including Rep. Tom Udall.

So what's next? Our task is to convince Sen. Pete Domenici to become the 20th cosponsor of the S2433. After all, he's received 546 letters from New Mexicans this year. Even though the majority of cosponsors are Democrats, there are some powerful Republicans like Sen. Richard Lugar and Sen. Chuck Hagel backing this legislation.

An Anti-Poverty Task Force

Two former presidential candidates announced the creation of anti-poverty initiatives in the early part of May.

The larger initiative, the Half in Ten campaign, was unveiled in Philadelphia on May 13 by Sen. John Edwards. That initiative, chaired by the former presidential candidate, aims to cut poverty in country by one-half in 10 years.










This campaign brings together four organizations with the experience, knowledge, and resources to make this goal a reality: ACORN, the Center for American Progress Action Fund (CAPAF), the Coalition on Human Needs (CHN), and the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR). Click here to see a video.

Four days earlier on May 9, another ex-presidential candidate, Gov. Bill Richardson, released details of his new task force focused on reducing poverty in New Mexico. The governor announced the initiative following a round table discussion with poverty experts and community leaders. The press release announcing the initiative made no mention of any link to the Half in Ten campaign.

But it should be no coincidence that the two programs were announced within days of each other. After all, 37 million Americans are living below the official poverty threshold. In New Mexico, 350,000 residents of the residents of our state are living in poverty.

Many of us already know that Sen. Edwards is one of the top anti-poverty advocates in our country. Gov. Richardson is known more prominently outside our state borders for his diplomacy efforts and his foreign policy experience. And even inside New Mexico, the governor's public-works projects and his infamous fights with the state legislature perhaps get more press than his anti-poverty initiatives.

During the presidential campaign, activists from The ONE Campaign around the country followed every candidate from both parties to get them to commit to reducing global poverty and to support the Millennium Development Goals, also known as the MDGs. This is all part of the Vote ONE 08 campaign. (Pictured above with the governor is Michael Castaldo, a ONE activist from New Hampshire)

Richardson, a former UN ambassador, readily supported these goals, as did most of the other candidates. The governor even issued a press release supporting the MDGs.

And the governor's Task Force to End Hunger, which is now defunct, got very little attention in the press. The task force achieved one important objective, which was to keep hunger reduction a legislative priority.

But perhaps that's not enough. There needed to be some sort of follow up. Since hunger and poverty are intrinsically related, the creation of the new task force makes sense.

Said the press release from the governor's office: The gap between rich and poor is at historic levels and many full time jobs do not pay enough to raise employees out of poverty. Strikingly, nearly a third of working women in full-time jobs do not earn enough to raise themselves and their children out of poverty.

While our state's economy is expanding, figures show the income gap is widening," said a press release from the governor's office. "We can not allow our neighbors to fall behind. We must be bold in our solutions to help struggling families make ends meet." Task force members will consider and research a range of issues:

• Strategic initiatives to address hunger, housing and child care needs
• Adequate compensation and a fair minimum wage
• Changes in the working family and child care tax credits
• More equity in the unemployment compensation system
• Easing access to higher education
• Making it easier for people to move to areas with better employment opportunities
• Assisting former prisoners in finding employment

"At this point, nothing is off the table," Richardson said. "We must attack the problem from every angle if we're going to see significant changes."

The task force is comprised of a very impressive list of academics and leaders of community organizations. I know four of those members fairly well. These experts and community leaders deal with all aspects of the poverty issue including: affordable housing, child care, hunger, wages, employment, tax policy, and community services. Mary Garcia of the Albuquerque Indian Center, Ruth Hoffman of Lutheran Advocacy Ministry, Susan Tiano, Professor of Sociology at the University of New Mexico, Sharron Welsh from the Santa Fe Community Housing Trust, Reverend Charles Becknell from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Melody Wattenberger of the Roadrunner Food Bank, Allen Sanchez from the New Mexico Conference of Catholic Bishops, Mike Loftin of Homewise, Greg Ortiz from the All Indian Pueblo Council, and Richard Santos, Professor of Economics at the University of New Mexico.

All it Takes is ONE Student

(Note: For the fourth year in a row, a school in New Mexico has embraced Bread for the World's Offering of Letters. But it takes someone within the school to care enough to bring the issue, whether domestic or global poverty , to the students and teachers.

In 2005, and 2006, teachers Karina Doyle at St. Michael's High School in Santa Fe and Emily Thorn at Menaul School in Albuquerque had their classes write letters to Congress . See previous post.

In 2007, Emily had several students and teachers sign a big banner related to the 2007 Farm Bill, which we delivered to Rep. Heather Wilson on Lobby Day. See picture in this post (Scroll to the bottom).

Then this year, there is Kyra-Ellis Moore, a 15-year-old at Albuquerque High School, who came to our Offering of Letters workshop. (That's her pictured with Bread member Marge Williams at the OL workshop in March). Kyra was so inspired by the presentations that she decided to try to hold an Offering of Letters at her school, one of more than a dozen public high schools in Albuquerque. While it would have been ideal for the students to actually sit down and write letters, Kyra did the practical thing. She had the letters ready for the students. But she made sure that they understood the content of the letter before signing. Anyway, I'll let her tell the story....)

ALBUQUERQUE HIGH SCHOOL CARES ABOUT GLOBAL POVERTY
By Kyra Ellis-Moore

I am a 15-year-old freshman at Albuquerque High School. I have been working with Bread for the World and The ONE Campaign for several years now, and have participated in many events such as vigils and The Center for Action and Contemplation's Stations of the Cross (the year when the main theme was The Millennium Development Goals).

I have done a lot of work with Bread for the World through my church, Saint Andrew Presbyterian, largely thanks to Ester Schneider and Carlos Navarro. Ester is wonderful lady who coordinates many of the church’s mission projects, many of which are in conjunction with Bread for the World. Carlos, a local grassroots leader for Bread for the World, brings opportunities for service to the church and Ester helps to get us involved.

Recently, Ester brought the Offering of Letters to the attention of our congregation. She had letters already printed out asking our Senators and Representative to support poverty eradication efforts. Ester was able to get 74 letters from our church, a huge amount considering the rather small size of our congregation. I wrote three letters, one to each politician, and decided to bring some of the letters to my school to try and get more youth involved.

I initially made 20 copies of each letter, 60 letters in all for people to sign, and these were all signed within a day or two. I had to continue making more and more copies to keep up with the extremely positive response I was getting from my peers. I am a senator at Albuquerque High, and I brought the letters to the school Senate, and talked a little bit about the Millennium Development Goals so that they new why the campaign was happening, and I was met with overwhelming participation.

When I first asked people to sign the letters they seemed a little bit guarded and wanted to know what they were about, but the moment I said it was for poverty eradication they asked for one. I also got a few letters from teachers at my school who were very glad that the students were getting involved in a cause that they knew to be extremely important. All in all I got 220 letters. I addressed all of these letters and brought them back to Saint Andrew for the offering and blessing, and then all 294 letters were sent out.

The Drama of Hunger

Originally published in the Bread blog, May 3, 2008

I am convinced
That if all mankind
Could only gather together
In one circle
Arms around each other's shoulders
And dance, laugh and cry
Together
Then much
of the tension and burden
of life
Would fall away

-Leonard Nimoy

How many times have we thought to ourselves that ending hunger and poverty is an insurmountable problem? And how many times have we countered that thought by considering the possibilities if we all put our hearts and minds together to address this problem.

And then you're faced with considering a wide range of emotions.

Do you cry because the suffering is so real? Consider the example of a mother (anywhere in the world) having to choose between feeding her children and getting enough to eat.

Do you laugh because we want to make fun of some of the situations that cause the suffering? For example, any clown can tell you that that the amount of money we spend on some goods and services (ice cream, perfume, ocean cruises, pet services) every year far exceeds what it would cost hunger and malnutrition at the global level.

Laugh? or Cry? or Both?

That's what the students enrolled in the class Hunger: A Theatrical Expression considered as part of a class project. This was one of more than a dozen classes offered through the Research Service Learning Program at the University of New Mexico during the spring semester 2008.

The class involved many aspects of theater, from writing the script to designing the set and costumes to acting out the various roles that they created in a play entitled Hungry Machine. Before the students wrote the script, they had to do extensive research to ensure that their play was not a superficial look at hunger. The looked at a wide range of resources (including several copies of the Bread for the World Institute's annual hunger reports) and held dialogues with a couple of guest speakers. "They spent the entire first month of the semester doing research," said Anna Saggese, one of two instructors Anna and fellow instructor Riti Sachdeva also directed the play.

Here's an excerpt from the program:

"One in three New Mexicans face food insecurities"
With this sentence, the class began a journey of discovery. We wanted to know what food insecurity is, who feels it, what it looks like, tastes like, where it begins and how to combat it. Through the research process, we started to unearth our personal relationships with food. We saw how food is an integral part of family, culture, survival and saiety. We looked at a lack of food and its impact on the individual and our larger communities.

The students then proceeded to put together the play, which consisted of about 10 vignettes involving many topics related to hunger, poverty and food. Some were monologues, others involved mimes and clowns. There was even a humorous sketch where a schoolteacher-type nun (with a German accent!) spoke about the impact of genetic engineering on the food supply. Underlying the various topics were what the students determined were six causes or effects of hunger: gender discrimination, vulnerability of children and the elderly, population growth and consumption, poverty and powerlessness, violence and militarism, and racism and ethnocentricity.

Here's what they said:

As we shared our writing we noticed interesting connections. Most of our main characters are women. A few are pregnant women. We realize a definite connection between food and mothers. Most of the monologues address topics that evoke a multitude of responses: anger, grief, fear, and even laughter. This performance is testimony to our process of uncovering the very complex truths about hunger in our state and in our world.

The resulting product was a very powerful play that spoke to the audience at many levels, with the message that hunger, while complex, is a problem that can be solved if we take time to learn about its underlying causes. Click here for program and cast information

To express their commitment to addressing the problem, the students in the class decided to include the opportunity for the audience to write letters as part of Bread for the World's 2008 Offering of Letters campaign, which asks Congress to increase funding for poverty-focused development assistance by at least $5 billion.