2019 Area -wide offering of letters
BETTER NUTRITION,   BETTER TOMORROW

We are grateful that God is moving in our time to end hunger.  Over the last few decades, with the help of U.S. leadership, the world has made great strides in reducing hunger and poverty. Additionally, since the turn of the 21st century, we have gained new insights into cost-effective approaches to global nutrition that have dramatic long-term effects on the lives of individuals, communities, and beyond.  Amazingly, such advances make ending hunger by 2030 feasible! 
However, there is still much work to be done.  Over the last few years, wars and other disasters have led to an increase in hunger.  According to the World Food Program, currently one person out of every nine suffers from hunger, and about on  in three is malnourished. And sadly, some of our political leaders are skeptical about programs that reduce food insecurity.
Bread for the World's 2019 Offering of letters (letter-writing campaign) aims to push us closer to our goal of eliminating hunger by 2030 by asking Congress to take two actions:
  • Scale up existing cost-effective, proven programs. (A prime example is investing in nutrition for pregnant mothers and their young children.)
  • Protect and increase funding for global nutrition.
Our churches make great efforts to support local and international programs to alleviate the suffering of hungry people and to provide opportunity. We need to complement our charitable works with advocacy.  We must use our pens and our voices to remind our elected officials of the  federal government's essential role in providing just policies and well designed, effective global nutrition programs.
So, for 2019 we asked churches to organize an Offering of Letters and then pass the letters collected to the Holland Bread Team by June 9, 2019.  We arranged a meeting with Matt Kooiman, district manager of Rep. Huzienga, in his Grandville office and personally delivered the stack of letters, along with a list of participating churches. The letters addressed to other members of Congress were mailed to their DC offices. 
Several area churches have been conducting these Offerings for years and consider them to be an essential component of our mission to carry out God’s work in today’s world.  The Offering of Letters can be carried out with only modest effort, and we are available to help! (E-mail us at us@hollandbreadteam.org.) Though handwritten letters are most effective, we have found that providing a form letter for parishioners to sign is most practical when large numbers of people are solicited.
If you would like to provide Bread for the World brochures or copies of this year's Offering of Letters bulletin insert, we have quite a few copies of both here in Holland.  So, feel free to email us at us@hollandbreadteam.org and ask us to drop some off to you.
If your church cannot meet our June 9 deadline, consider holding an Offering of Letters anyway.  The mailing addresses for the DC offices of our members of Congress are readily available on their websites.
Resources          Third Reformed May 2018 appeal
         St Francis end-of-Mass appeal, 2019        
  • Bulletin Insert:        ​               
            St. Francis bulletin insert
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Letter counts for 2019 Offering of Letters
First United Methodist (Holland)           62 Rep. Huizenga, 8 Rep. Upton
Hope Church                                               34 Rep. Huizenga, 9 Rep. Upton
​St. Francis Catholic                                 134 Rep. Huizenga, 32 Rep. Upton
Third Reformed                                          58 Rep. Huizenga, 17 Rep. Upton
CROP Walk                                                  54 Rep. Huizenga, 10 Rep. Upton
Community Action House                       82 Rep. Huizenga,  4 Rep. Upton
Total letter count: 504 (424 for Rep. Huizenga and 80 for Rep. Upton)
Letter counts for 2018 Offering of Letters
First United Methodist (Holland)           58 Rep. Huizenga, 23 Rep. Upton
Hope Reformed Church                             45 Rep. Huizenga, 8 Rep. Upton
Our Lady of the Lake Catholic                 90 Rep. Huizenga
St. Francis Catholic                                  176 Rep. Huizenga, 30 Rep. Upton
Third Reformed                                          83 Rep. Huizenga, 19 Rep. Upton
CROP Walk                                                   42 Rep. Huizenga, 8 Rep. Upton
Total letter count: 582
Letter counts for 2017 Offering of Letters
Christ Memorial Church                           12
First United Methodist (Holland)           18
Hope Reformed Church                             67
​Hope United for Justice (Hope College) 51 Rep Huizenga (plus an unknown number to other reps)
New Community Fourth Reformed        40
Our Lady of the Lake Catholic                 70 Rep. Huizenga,   2 Rep. Upton
St. Francis Catholic                                  173 Rep. Huizenga, 25 Rep. Upton
St. Patrick Catholic (Grand Haven)        16 (many more sent separately, count unknown)
Third Reformed                                          70 Rep. Huizenga, 23 Rep. Upton
CROP Walk                                                   43 Rep. Huizenga
Total letter count: 610+
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