Get Involved

Act Now

Offering of Letters

• Call (800-826-3688) or email your members of Congress and urge them to address growing hunger at home and abroad by making the one-year extension of the Child Tax Credit (CTC) permanent and also increase U.S. leadership and funding for global nutrition programs.
• Globally, hundreds of millions of people are on the brink of starvation. And levels of U.S hunger are now higher than during the Great Depression.

For more information on this issue:

• The 2021 Offering of Letters
• Fact Sheet: Expand the Child Tax Credit to Significantly Reduce Hunger

Watch for action alerts. For additional talking points, contact organizing@bread.org or call 800-822-7323.

Regional Webinars

This year’s Offering of Letters will span four topics—food systems, climate change, economic justice, and racial and gender equity. Hundreds of Offerings are held each year, resulting in tens of thousands of letters to Congress. Supported with prayer, these letters are a bold witness to God’s justice and mercy.

To learn about the topics, how your church, campus or community can be involved, and to connect with your organizer and fellow Bread members, register for an update in your region. Please note the time zones.

Southeast Regional Webinar

(AL, AR, GA, KY, LA, MD, MS, TN, VA, WV FL, NC, SC, DC)
Hosted by Rev. David Street, Rosa Saavedra, and Florence French
Thursday, March 18 at 4p.m. (ET).

Register here »

East Regional Webinar

(CT, DE, MA, ME, NH, NJ, NY, PA, RI, VT)
Hosted by David Street
Wednesday, March 10 at 4 p.m. (ET).

View the recording  »

Midwest Regional Webinar

(IA, IL, KS, MI, MN, MO, ND, NE, OH, SD, WI)
Hosted by Nicole Schmidt and Zach Schmidt
Tuesday, March 9 at 1 p.m. (ET).

View the recording  »

Southwest Regional Webinar

(AZ, NM, OK, TX)
Hosted by Lupe Conchas
Friday, March 12 at 12 p.m. (MT)

Register here  »

West Regional Webinar

(AK, CA, CO, HI, ID, MT, NV, OR, UT, WA, WY)
Hosted by Clark Hansen
Tuesday, March 9 at 1 p.m. (PT).

View the recording  »

Indiana State Webinar

Hosted by Patricia Case and Dave Miner
Saturday, March 6 at 10 a.m. (ET).

View the recording  »

We encourage you to register for your regional update even if you are unable to attend. This ensures you will receive the recording and follow-up information.

If you have questions, contact organizing@bread.org or call 800-822-7323.

Activists in Action

The Dignity in Growing Food

By Robin Stephenson

Mago Reyes is an extraordinary woman with an extraordinary story.

Brought to America at 15 by her then husband, Reyes spent her teens working two jobs. While most young girls her age were fretting over school exams, Reyes’ went to work early every morning, bending over a row of fruit or vegetable in an Oregon field. Her second shift, from 2 p.m. to midnight, was at a lunch cart.

Fast-forward eighteen years, three children, domestic violence, and a divorce later; I meet her in another Oregon field. But this time the plants belong to her.

Reyes rents about an acre of land nestled alongside a busy highway in Cornelius, Oregon. At farmers markets and through a CSA program connected to Adelante Mujeres, an organization that empowers Latinas, Reyes is able to sell what she grows.

Reyes Family Produce—the business she started in 2018—is slowly growing. She dreams of owning her own land one day.

Raising three boys on her own, she still works a second job to make ends meet but doesn’t complain. The pride she exudes while discussing her plants, her plans, and the various ways she is educating herself about farming, is inspiring.

This is a woman who, like her carefully tended plants, is flourishing.

Agriculture is one constant in Reyes’ life. Corn, bean, and watermelon fields surround the close-knit community of San Estaban, Atatlahuca, where Reyes grew up in Mexico—but so does poverty.

Lack of education and employment pushed many young people like Reyes to migrate in the late 1980s, when it is estimated that over half the population was living on less than $2 a day.

“I had barely left middle school when I got married,” Reyes says. “There was no other school; no way to continue studying there.

For many children in rural Oaxaca, six years of schooling is standard, and Reyes made it to nine. Girls are expected to raise children and so education is not a priority. Child marriage—not banned in Mexico until 2014—was common in Oaxaca.

Farmworkers face discrimination and low wages on both sides of the border. In the United States, field workers, especially those who are undocumented, don’t earn enough to meet their own basic nutritional needs.

The opportunity that pushed Reyes to the United States was elusive until she qualified for programs that gave her a foothold in the economy. She is now a permanent resident. During the tough times, Reyes relied on food stamps to feed her children, something she is proud she no longer needs. 

“I didn’t want to depend on food stamps,” she said, thanking God for her economic stability. “Now, I always have vegetables in my garden.”

Robin Stephenson is senior manager for digital campaigns at Bread for the World.

More Resources: Activist Tool Kit

The Activist Tool Kit is intended for new and current Bread grassroots hunger activists. It provides a set of how-to sheets for carrying out advocacy and fact sheets on the current issues Bread for the World is working on.

It's ideal as a starter toolkit for new Bread activists or as a set of updates for current activists. Form your own toolkit by printing out some or all of the sheets in the kit.

How-tos:

• How to Conduct an In-District Meeting with a Member of Congress (or the Staff)
• Effectively Using Public Meetings to Engage with Members of Congress
• Writing a Letter to the Editor of Your Local Newspaper
• Conducting an Offering of Letters

Issues-related pieces:

• Hunger and Poverty State Fact Sheets
• Fact Sheet: Why We Need $150 Million for Global Nutrition Programs
• Hunger by the Numbers (2017)
• Fact Sheet: Fortified for Life. How the U.S. Government Supports Global Nutrition
• Briefing Paper: A Multi-Sectoral Approach to Nutrition. Assessing USAID’s Progress
• Poverty-Focused Development Assistance (PFDA) 101
• The McGovern-Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition Program
• Getting to Zero Hunger by 2030: Race, Poverty, and Hunger
• Mass Incarceration: A Major Cause of Hunger
• Border Policy: Addressing Root Causes of Hunger and Immigration
• Fact Sheet: Hunger and Poverty in the Indigenous Community
• Fact Sheet: Hunger and Poverty in the African American Community
• Fact Sheet: Hunger and Poverty in the Latino Community

Biblical resources:

• The Biblical Basis for Advocacy to End Hunger
• The Bible and Immigration Reform
• The Bible and Poverty-Focused Development Assistance
• The Bible and Mass Incarceration
• The Bible on Health as a Hunger Issue

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Please let us know what suggestions you have for this page and how we can assist you. Email us at organizing@bread.org or call 800-822-7323.