June 2005: Overcome Poverty and Hunger

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By Paul Donnelly
Washington Window
Vol. 73, No. 7, June 2005

"Budgets are moral documents," Bishop John Bryson Chane likes to say. At a June 6 Interfaith Convocation on Hunger at Washington National Cathedral, people of faith from 40 different denominations will attempt to put their moral stamp on a national commitment to make ending hunger a priority in American policymaking, as it is in Scripture. But it won't be easy.

"It's a tough year," said David Beckman of the Bread for the World Institute that, along with America's Second Harvest, The Nation's Food Bank Network, Call to Renewal and the Interfaith Anti-Hunger Leaders is sponsoring the June 4-7 national conference called One Table, Many Voices: A Mobilization to Overcome Poverty and Hunger. "With the Republicans controlling the White House and both houses of Congress, it's deeply polarized." So much so, that at press time the coalition's signature legislation this year, the Hunger Free Communities Act, had not been introduced for lack of heavyweight bipartisan support.

But there is clearly momentum building: no less a conservative than Pat Robertson has signed on to the effort, if not necessarily to the specific budget goals of defending nutrition programs from budget cuts.

"Let's do a moral values interrogation of our budgets," said Jim Wallis of Call to Renewal. On tour for his new book, God's Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It, Wallis has done 80 events in 46 cities in the past five months: "I tell people you can identify our Congress because they're the ones trying to lead us by waving wet fingers in the air - both parties. You don't change direction by changing the people with their fingers in the air, you change the wind. That's what people of faith are - wind-changers."

Second Harvest: the Nation's Food Bank Network provides services to the hungry - 214 food banks with 50,000 volunteers that feed 23 million people some 2 billion pounds of food a year.

"To truly end hunger in our lifetime, we need to build an awareness that it can be done," said Ertharine Cousin, Second Harvest's chief operating officer.

To build awareness, the sponsors will host a rally at the MCI center on June 7, National Hunger Awareness Day, featuring speakers like Senator Pat Roberts (R-KS), co-chair of the Senate Hunger Caucus, and Grammy-winning rock star Carlos Santana.

"I know Pat Roberts believes in hunger relief," Cousin explained, describing the wide bipartisan support hunger legislation has had in the past. "But this issue is getting caught up in the politics of the Hill."

So perhaps something higher is needed.

"Just from an Episcopal point of view," said Bread for the World's Beckman, who attends Christ Church, Alexandria, "this is an extraordinarily diverse group participating in the Interfaith Convocation on June 6. What we figured was, if you've got Catholics and Protestants and Jews and Buddhists and Muslims at the National Cathedral, who are you going to ask to speak? Let's bring somebody from outside, from Africa." So the convocation's preacher will be Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane of Cape Town, South Africa. Last year, the Archbishop helped launch a global campaign in 100 countries called the Micah Challenge, supporting the United Nations' eight Millennium Development Goals to reduce specific areas of global suffering, including hunger, by 2015.

"It's not true that Republicans will never vote money for poor people," Beckman argues, noting that the administration has proposed to increase development spending abroad. "Bush is the best president on Africa that we've ever had. But Congress isn't likely to give it to him," and Congress may also make deep cuts in domestic nutrition programs. "There is a real policy tension here between what we want and what the governing party is willing to do."

Yet, there is hope. The Society of Saint Andrew, founded 25 years ago, shows one simple way: gleaning. On June 7 - God and the Capitol Police willing - the Society will do a "potato drop," driving a truckload of sub-standard spuds to the Hill for distribution. The Society works with organizations - farms, corporate agriculture - all over the country, and potatoes are the best example: Grading machines determine that many perfectly edible potatoes are misshapen or the wrong size for making into French fries or chips, so volunteers gather them up and take them to food banks: a second harvest, exactly as the Bible instructs.

"There are organizations all across the country that do gleaning of almost everything that you can think of," from day-old bread in groceries to medical equipment at closed facilities which is crated and shipped to underdeveloped countries, said Marian Kelly, a co-founder of the society and director of the Potato Project.

A long list of Federal policies can facilitate this sort of stewardship: liability and tax legislation, budgets. But ultimately, even faith-based politics is a matter of persuasion - and commitment.
"I think it's the case that a candidate loses if they're perceived to be hardhearted," says Beckman of the political power of people of faith. "I wish it happened more."

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