Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Faith Action Network Update....partnering with LPPO

An Update for the Synod Hunger Team from the Faith Action Network
Your ELCA State Public Policy Office

At the September 2011 Synod Hunger Team meeting, team members asked the Faith Action Network for an e-news article to provide recipients with a brief update about the FAN merger, and to highlight two or three hunger-related legislative priorities for the year. We send this update with gratitude for the opportunity to re-connect, and to join our energies with yours to create the legislative victories that will reduce hunger in our state and nation.

The Faith Action Network absolutely remains your ELCA Washington State Public Policy Office, enjoying robust local, synodical and churchwide connections. LPPO's merger with the Washington Association of Churches continues the powerful work of both organizations by broadening our network and increasing our resources. The ELCA has a strong tradition of partnering with ecumenical and interfaith bodies, and we are proud to strengthen that tradition while remaining rooted in our baptismal vocation to "strive for peace and justice in all the earth." 

If you have made financial contributions to LPPO in the past, we thank you and ask you to continue your giving. If you have not, we invite you to do so! You may continue to send financial gifts to: Faith Action Network, 766 John St, Suite B, Seattle, WA 98109. There is also a giving button on our website at www.fanwa.org.

And now for some hunger-related legislative updates!

1. 2011 Legislative Success Threatened
In the 2011 session LPPO and WAC, along with their anti-poverty allies, were successful in sustaining funding for the WIC/FMNP (Women, Infants, and Children/Farmers Market Nutrition Program). Funding for this small but important program was to be "zeroed out" in the second year of the 2011-13 biennium, but we took the lead to restore fall funding for the second year of the biennium. This program will be threatened again this year, and we will need your voices to persuade legislators to keep it going strong!

2. Meals for Kids Coalition
FAN is currently a partner, along with the Children's Alliance and the Washington State Nutrition Association, in a Meals for Kids Coalition. We are attempting to increase access to free school meals for children from low-income households. Currently, depending upon household income, families either pay full price, reduced price, or receive lunches free.  Cuts threaten $6.8 million that was used to establish the free tier. Our strategy is to preserve the $6.8 million and the free tier, and remove the reduced price tier so that more families will qualify for free lunches in these difficult economic times.

Since Kari wrote this for us in September, be sure and check our the FAN webpage for the latest development.


Kent Lutheran working with Sudan

Follow Kent Lutherans exciting outreach partnership with the 40 Sudanese who worship with them. Sand Water Filters, Shoes, Misson Trips, you name it.  More details on their blog

Sunday, March 7, 2010

Response Ability Builders

Response Ability Builders......This exciting ministry was started by a Lutheran pastor, Eddy, and involves building and teaching others to build emergency housing.  Watch here for more from Eddy as this ministry develops and as he visits Haiti to see the doors open for temporary housing there.

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Taking Root...... learn so you can share...

Take time to learn more about the ELCA Hunger Program's new resource  Taking Root, a complete curriculum for your congregation, with programming for children and youth, easily adapted for adults and multi generational groups.

Information on the ELCA Hunger site. This is powerful material.

If you want some hands on introduction call Bob or Carol Wall or Kristie Neklason.  Kristie's email is on this page and reach the Walls at carolhage@gmail.com or bobcwall@gmail.com We are available to come to your congregation and do a sample class or even to come to tell your congregation about the Hunger Appeal

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Subscribe to Hunger Rumblings...2 posts herein

Sign up to receive Hunger Rumblings blog postings (like the two below) in your e-mail inbox. Visit http://blogs.elca.org/hungerrumblings/ , then click on the "Subscribe by Email" link found in the left-hand column under "Tools for You."

Hunger Rumblings
I am resolved...are you?

"So teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts to wisdom" (Psalm 90:12). "Wake up!" says the Psalmist, "For you own good get smart and change now.life is short!"
Only 27 shopping days until Christmas! What irony! Between Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve we are regularly reminded to number our days.our shopping days.
Maybe our current economic realities can serve as a wake up call to get smart and change shopping-as-usual, for our own good and the good of the world. To that end, I resolve to:
1) Buy nothing the day after Thanksgiving (November 28). Search online for "Buy Nothing Day" to learn more about this unofficial, loosely organized, counter-cultural movement.
2) Give up malls and mega stores for Advent. I do this because I'm an impulse buyer, easily sucked in by twinkly lights and colorful displays.
3) Step up my charitable giving. Our economic times are tough, to be sure, and tough economic times are surely hardest on people who already vulnerable. These are the perfect times, then, to step up and give an extra donation to your congregation; to churchwide ministries like the ELCA World Hunger Appeal and ELCA Vision for Mission; and to the other ministries, agencies, and organizations that count on your support. Through ELCA Good Gifts (
www.elca.org/giving) charitable donations are transformed into really good Christmas presents.
4) Give value-full gifts. I will expect a lot from the gifts I give. They will be some combination of the following:
* A gift donation, like ELCA Good Gifts
* locally grown, raised, produced, or sold
* needed and wanted
* eco-friendly
* consumable
* hand made
* recycled, reused, repurposed
* Fair Trade
Are you resolved? What have you promised yourself as we count the days until Christmas?


"I am resolved" resources

I wrote an article about my 30-year journey to get Christmas gift-giving "right" for the December issue of Lutheran Woman Today magazine. This article won't be featured on the LWT Web site until December, but you can get a sneak peak. The online version (http://tinyurl.com/susiesays) doesn't include the picture, so I'm sharing it here. My dad took this picture of me with my mom, my first book of prayers, and my beloved stuffed cat [un]creatively named "Kitty."
There are many resources to help "keep the reason for the season" during Advent and Christmas, notably Whose birthday is it, anyway? by our friends at Alternatives for Simple Living.
Don't forget the Pentecost (see pages 2, 3, 10) and the Advent--Easter (see pages 3, 4, 5) editions of ELCA World Hunger's Congregation Connections
The current issue of ELCA World Hunger's Top 40 Resources catalog highlights our Christmas card, resources connected to ELCA Good Gifts and God's Global Barnyard, and other gifts-and-giving helps.
Thankful blessings,
Sue Edison-Swift