This weekend I joined others in the area concerned about hunger at the Bread for the World workshop held at the Saint Louis Catholic Church in Miami, Florida. The Bread organizer, Greg Sims gave me the opportunity to talk about ONE and our local efforts to advocate for increased foreign assistance and effective programs that will help those who need it the most.

With new faces and energy in Washington, D.C. we know that now is the time for Congress to take action. This year, Bread for the World’s offering of letters is urging Congress to rework U.S. foreign assistance to make it more effective in reducing poverty. At the end of the workshop we all took a few minutes to write personal letters to Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL-18)to ask for her help to make poverty reduction a primary goal of foreign assistance. ONE member Alix Gordon will be hand-delivering the letters to the Congresswoman’s district office later this week.

I am so glad we had the chance to participate in the workshop and am encouraged by the number of organizations and individuals on the ground here in Florida that are working together to advocate for policies that will help people lift themselves out of hunger and poverty.

-Sara Paterni, ONE Field Organizer