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From: Your Name <you@example.com>
To: acyannias@yahoo.com
Subject: End Child Hunger in the United States!
Dear President-Elect ____, Speaker Pelosi, Majority Reid, Senator Schumer, and Senator Clinton:
We are writing you on behalf of millions of New Yorkers of faith to urge you to end child hunger in the next 5 years as a down payment on ending all hunger in the United States in the next 10 years. In addition to setting this goal, we urge you to take concrete steps towards ending child hunger by supporting policy changes in the Child Nutrition and WIC Reauthorization Act that will expand and modernize the federal child nutrition safety net.
We, as members of Interfaith Voices Against Hunger, represent diverse and influential faith communities in New York City that are united in a call to end domestic hunger and slash the poverty that causes it. We are appalled that one in five children in New York City currently lives in a household that is unable to afford enough food. As people of faith, we compelled to work to feed our less-fortunate neighbors because it is a central tenet of all our faiths.
We know America can end hunger because it previously came close to doing so. On May 6, 1969, President Richard Nixon, recommended the expansion of existing, and the creation of new, domestic nutrition assistance. Nixon implored Congress to support this measure by arguing that: "More is at stake here than the health and well being of [millions of] American children. Something like the very honor of American democracy is involved." Over the next seven years, bi-partisan coalitions in Congress enacted a series of policies that created the modern nutrition assistance programs which succeeded in virtually ending starvation conditions in the U.S.
However, in the decades that followed, Presidents and Congresses slashed those very nutrition assistance programs and other anti-poverty efforts and wages failed to keep up with the cost of living. As a result, as of 2006, 35.5 million Americans, including 12.6 million children, lived in a condition described by the federal government as "food insecurity," which means their households either suffered from hunger or struggled at the brink of hunger. These conditions harm children in a multitude of ways, including: stunting their physical and emotional growth, creating serious health problems, and hampering their educational performance. Both as a moral matter and a practical matter of economic self-interest, it is unconscionable for us to continue to accept the status quo which allows child hunger to continue at this level in New York City and in our nation.
Fortunately, the Child Nutrition and WIC Reauthorization Act, which will be considered by the next Administration and Congress, gives the nation the opportunity to wipe out child hunger once and for all. We believe that the bill should:
1. Set a goal of cutting food insecurity among U.S. children in half by 2012 and ending it by 2014.
2. Provide the funding and the guidance necessary to enable most elementary and secondary school in American to provide every student with free school breakfasts (regardless of their family income) in the first class period.
3. Provide the funding to enable every school in America to provide free lunches to all their students, regardless of family income. (By making school meals universal in this way, the country can decease government funding on paperwork now used to make income eligibility determinations and instead use that money improve the nutrition of children.)
4. Increase reimbursements to school districts that provide healthier foods, particularly for districts buying from small local farmers.
5. Make the Women Infants and Children (WIC) nutritional assistance program an entitlement available to any low-income parent or child who needs it and fund nutritional improvements in the WIC package.
6. Increase reimbursements for both government and non-profit agencies that sponsor after-school and summer meals for children.
In addition, the next President and Congress should: increase food stamps allotments for families with children; increased Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) payments to low-income working families with children; and increase to food and funding provided to faith-based and secular food banks, soup kitchens, and food pantries through the USDA's The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) and FEMA's Emergency Food and Shelter Program (EFSP).
Taken together, these steps could end child hunger in America. Both our religious traditions and our common sense as citizens lead us to urge you to take all these steps immediately.
If you would like to meet with us to follow-up on these concerns, please contact Alexandra Yannias (Coordinator of Interfaith Voices Against Hunger) at (212) 825-0028, ext. 212.
Sincerely,
Your Name
Your Organization
123 Your St.
Yousville, YO 12345
Phone: (123)456-7890
Fax: (123)456-7890x123
p.s.
Your Personal Statement
--
Delivered by CitizenSpeak!
Report abuse to abuse@citizenspeak.org [1356]
To: acyannias@yahoo.com
Subject: End Child Hunger in the United States!
Dear President-Elect ____, Speaker Pelosi, Majority Reid, Senator Schumer, and Senator Clinton:
We are writing you on behalf of millions of New Yorkers of faith to urge you to end child hunger in the next 5 years as a down payment on ending all hunger in the United States in the next 10 years. In addition to setting this goal, we urge you to take concrete steps towards ending child hunger by supporting policy changes in the Child Nutrition and WIC Reauthorization Act that will expand and modernize the federal child nutrition safety net.
We, as members of Interfaith Voices Against Hunger, represent diverse and influential faith communities in New York City that are united in a call to end domestic hunger and slash the poverty that causes it. We are appalled that one in five children in New York City currently lives in a household that is unable to afford enough food. As people of faith, we compelled to work to feed our less-fortunate neighbors because it is a central tenet of all our faiths.
We know America can end hunger because it previously came close to doing so. On May 6, 1969, President Richard Nixon, recommended the expansion of existing, and the creation of new, domestic nutrition assistance. Nixon implored Congress to support this measure by arguing that: "More is at stake here than the health and well being of [millions of] American children. Something like the very honor of American democracy is involved." Over the next seven years, bi-partisan coalitions in Congress enacted a series of policies that created the modern nutrition assistance programs which succeeded in virtually ending starvation conditions in the U.S.
However, in the decades that followed, Presidents and Congresses slashed those very nutrition assistance programs and other anti-poverty efforts and wages failed to keep up with the cost of living. As a result, as of 2006, 35.5 million Americans, including 12.6 million children, lived in a condition described by the federal government as "food insecurity," which means their households either suffered from hunger or struggled at the brink of hunger. These conditions harm children in a multitude of ways, including: stunting their physical and emotional growth, creating serious health problems, and hampering their educational performance. Both as a moral matter and a practical matter of economic self-interest, it is unconscionable for us to continue to accept the status quo which allows child hunger to continue at this level in New York City and in our nation.
Fortunately, the Child Nutrition and WIC Reauthorization Act, which will be considered by the next Administration and Congress, gives the nation the opportunity to wipe out child hunger once and for all. We believe that the bill should:
1. Set a goal of cutting food insecurity among U.S. children in half by 2012 and ending it by 2014.
2. Provide the funding and the guidance necessary to enable most elementary and secondary school in American to provide every student with free school breakfasts (regardless of their family income) in the first class period.
3. Provide the funding to enable every school in America to provide free lunches to all their students, regardless of family income. (By making school meals universal in this way, the country can decease government funding on paperwork now used to make income eligibility determinations and instead use that money improve the nutrition of children.)
4. Increase reimbursements to school districts that provide healthier foods, particularly for districts buying from small local farmers.
5. Make the Women Infants and Children (WIC) nutritional assistance program an entitlement available to any low-income parent or child who needs it and fund nutritional improvements in the WIC package.
6. Increase reimbursements for both government and non-profit agencies that sponsor after-school and summer meals for children.
In addition, the next President and Congress should: increase food stamps allotments for families with children; increased Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) payments to low-income working families with children; and increase to food and funding provided to faith-based and secular food banks, soup kitchens, and food pantries through the USDA's The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) and FEMA's Emergency Food and Shelter Program (EFSP).
Taken together, these steps could end child hunger in America. Both our religious traditions and our common sense as citizens lead us to urge you to take all these steps immediately.
If you would like to meet with us to follow-up on these concerns, please contact Alexandra Yannias (Coordinator of Interfaith Voices Against Hunger) at (212) 825-0028, ext. 212.
Sincerely,
Your Name
Your Organization
123 Your St.
Yousville, YO 12345
Phone: (123)456-7890
Fax: (123)456-7890x123
p.s.
Your Personal Statement
--
Delivered by CitizenSpeak!
Report abuse to abuse@citizenspeak.org [1356]
