MADISON — Using a baseball analogy, University of Wisconsin Head Basketball Coach Greg Gard said, “We need to step up to the plate and help those around us.”
He gave this advice during a talk at the Society of St. Vincent de Paul’s Care Café, a community fundraising breakfast held May 5 at the Alliant Energy Center in Madison.
In this era of emails and texting, hand-written letters still have a powerful — maybe even stronger — impact.
As work gets underway in Congress and state legislatures, citizens are often urged to contact their elected representatives on various issues.
Although some of us still like to send hand-written “snail mail” letters, I thought perhaps they might be considered obsolete. Not so, says advice given by Catholics Confront Global Poverty (CCGP), an initiative of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and Catholic Relief Services.
MADISON — A recent report shows that 3,370 people need homeless services in Dane County. The survey included 473 families with 946 children under the age of 18.
“These are disturbing numbers,” said Jackson Fonder, president and CEO of Catholic Charities Madison in an interview. “It catches us in Madison off guard.”
MADISON — “Used to be I couldn’t boil water, but now I’m a lot better at cooking. Plus I’m the best dishwasher in the United States,” said Larry with a laugh, explaining what he likes about his job.
Larry is a member of the Culinary Creations Catering crew, a social enterprise of the Catholic Multicultural Center (CMC).
Before becoming involved with Culinary Creations Catering, Larry was homeless and struggling to find a job where he could make a living.
Wisconsin has long held a reputation as a great place to live and work. We are known for providing an excellent education for people at all levels, along with good jobs and a safe place to live.
Our state prizes the values of opportunity, responsibility, family, and community, pointed out a speaker at a break-out session at the Catholics at the Capitol legislative conference held on April 8 in Madison.
Ken Taylor, executive director of the Wisconsin Council on Children and Families, said there are many good things happening in our state.
He also shared some shocking news.
Data published in April of this year reveals that Wisconsin has the highest unemployment rate for black people in our country at 19.9 percent. By contrast, less than five percent of white people are unemployed in Wisconsin.
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Just think about it. According to the United Nations, approximately 1.2 billion people live in extreme poverty throughout the world.
Clean water and sanitation, adequate nutritious food, a safe job with fair pay, an education, medical care, and a decent place to call home are unfulfilled dreams to these brothers and sisters of ours.
Every day they must somehow find a way to survive on less than $1.25. Even in the poorest countries, it is almost impossible to live on this meager amount. And in fact, many do not make it.
Every day approximately 21,000 fellow human beings die from hunger and hunger related diseases. And according to the United Nations Children’s Fund, some 300 million children go to bed hungry every night.
Most of us don’t know what real hunger is. We may get some hunger pangs when we skip a meal or wait awhile to eat. But we probably have never experienced the pain, weakness, fatigue, and other symptoms of excessive or chronic hunger.
If you check for symptoms of hunger on the Internet, you find that there are many other affects of extreme hunger, especially in children. Hunger hits children physically with delayed growth and development, as well as greater susceptibility to diseases. Hunger also affects children’s learning and impacts their social interactions.
One Human Family, Food for AllOfficial prayer from Caritas O God, you entrusted to us the fruits of all creation so that we might care for the earth and be nourished with its bounty. You sent us your Son to share our very flesh and blood and to teach us your Law of Love. Through His death and resurrection, we have been formed into one human family. Jesus showed great concern for those who had no food — even transforming five loaves and two fish into a banquet that served 5,000 and many more. We come before you, O God, conscious of our faults and failures, but full of hope, to share food with all members in this global family. Through your wisdom, inspire leaders of government and of business, as well as all the world’s citizens, to find just and charitable solutions to end hunger by assuring that all people enjoy the right to food. Thus we pray, O God, that when we present ourselves for Divine Judgment, we can proclaim ourselves as “One Human Family” with “Food for All”. AMEN. |
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What is really sad is that since over 40 percent of households in the United States live below the poverty level, approximately 13 million American children live with hunger or are at risk of experiencing hunger.
What can we do to help those who are hungry? This week Pope Francis helped launch a global campaign of prayer and action against world hunger, according to a Catholic News Service (CNS) article.
Organized by Caritas Internationalis, the Vatican-based federation of Catholic charities, the global “wave of prayer” began at noon on Tuesday, Dec. 10, on the South Pacific island of Samoa and headed west across the world’s time zones.
Pope Francis offered his blessing and support for the “One Human Family, Food For All” campaign in a five-minute video message released on the eve of the global launch (go to food.caritas.org for his message and more information and resources on this campaign to end world hunger).
Caritas Internationalis invited its 164-member organizations and local churches to pray for an end to hunger and malnutrition as well as to act on a local, national, or global level against food waste and promote food access and security worldwide, said the CNS article.
In the United States, Caritas works with Catholic Charities USA (Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Madison is an affiliate) and Catholic Relief Services.
Today, most of us take for granted that people of all races will worship in church together, eat in the same parts of restaurants, and use the same public restrooms.
But that wasn’t true in many parts of our country just 50 years ago. People of color didn’t have the freedom to do many of the things white people did.
As we observe the 50th anniversary of the famous March on Washington, D.C., on August 28, it gives us an opportunity to reflect on how much progress we’ve made in guaranteeing civil rights for all people who live in our country.
In Wisconsin, I think that the rights of people of all races have been respected better than in some other parts of the country. Our churches, restaurants, and schools have been integrated ever since I can remember.
However, statistics show that non-white people are put in jails and prisons in our state at a higher number than white people. It seems as if minorities have higher rates of unemployment and have a greater chance of living in poverty.
To the editor:
This month, we have an opportunity to contribute to some very worthwhile causes through the National Combined Collection, which you have heard about in recent weeks.
One of the groups assisted through this collection is the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD), which has a diocesan board that is effectively helping people in the Madison Diocese.
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Every person who has enough nutritious food to eat and cares about the one billion people who do not, should be paying attention to the 2012 Farm Bill.
At stake are deep, heartless congressional monetary cuts to national and international food assistance programs, environmentally protective farm and ranch conservation projects, and safety net programs designed to help struggling small and mid-sized family farmers and rural communities.
Bob Gronski, policy coordinator, for the National Catholic Rural Life Conference (www.ncrlc.com) explained to me that Congress is poised to cut between $23 billion and $34 billion from current funding levels of the Farm Bill.
