Hunger Network in Ohio

Creating Awareness - Seeking Solutions

HungerNetOhio # 7.1: Hunger Issues for 2010

"Email conversations about changing conditions causing hunger in Ohio and around the world"

TO	Advocates for reducing hunger
FROM	Hunger Network in Ohio
ABOUT	Abuse/Neglect of--but Hope for-the Desperate

This year Ohioans in dire poverty will be faced with a two kinds of obstacles that could further reduce their capacities to cope. One is indifference and the other exploitation. Using terms to describe these dual demons often associated with child welfare, neglect and abuse seem to capture this moment.

Under the first category of neglect, we entered this year chained to a State budget that will likely continue a downward course of failing to address basic needs of many of the most vulnerable among us.

Alongside negligence, potential abuses abound impacting those least able to resist and most to lose. Several crude and notorious predators seem relentlessly poised to further erode especially the capability of low-income families. They include one already publicly approved gambling initiative and a second ready to pounce on voters this spring. And, already voted out in November 08, extravagant payday lending practices continue abusively unabated.

But hope exists for addressing these and other forms impediments toward greater economic justice. Community-based--often church-related--opportunities exist for confronting these needs for emergency food, urgent services, and counter initiatives against public programs that exploit those who struggle to survive.

Moreover, and addressing the larger dynamics of economically disadvantaged families, recommendations from a comprehensive bipartisan study were released in 2009 naming specific and manageable ways for reducing poverty in Ohio. Also, efforts also intensified late last year to offer low-wage workers tax credits to further stretch their limited dollars. And, 14 years deep into improving the way we help the economically depressed, the federal government and Ohio officials continue to try to refine and apply its intentions of moving those in poverty toward greater self-sufficiency. Each of these programs offers chances for ending hunger in Ohio through reducing conditions that create and sustain poverty.

Let's re-energize imagination and will required to rejuvenate these efforts

More Information

2 Cents-a-Meal Pamphlet

Plenty & Scarcity October 2008 - Election Choices

Click here to see Plenty - 5.29J.08

Can Wrapper

Ending Hunger in Ohio Fact Sheet

HUNGER ISSUES FOR 2009

The Hunger Network in Ohio--in cooperation with the overall Vote Out Poverty campaign, Ohio Anti-hunger Task Force, and our ongoing collegial network of human service advocates--will work cooperatively within five principal areas (Hunger, Health care, Homelessness/Housing, Education, and Employment). Recognizing the hunger implications within each of these poverty-related indices, urgent food assistance will remain our primary focus.

In response to a severely declining economy and financial deficiencies among Ohioans, we will dedicate ourselves to especially three dimensions of hunger relief:

• Availability of Emergency Food. Advocating for increasing state support for the Ohio Association of Second Harvest Foodbank system, participation in gleaning in conjunction with the Society of St. Andrew’s, generating support for church and community emergency feeding programs.

• Spread of Benefit Banks. Working especially with individual church and ecumenical groups throughout the state to develop expertise in food pantry workers for helping clients to obtain public sources for which they, through their economic disparity, qualify.

• Supplemental Food Assistance. Promoting federal increase in the amount and availability of “food stamps,” WIC, community meals programs.

Electronic Public Policy Network: HungerNetOhio

In order to make information about hunger-related issues more readily available, the Hunger Network in Ohio recent initiated an Electronic Public Policy Network. It is designed to be in touch with interested persons as soon as public policies are introduced and prime opportunities are available to influence legislators. It also offers background information and reference to parallel efforts of other organizations as well as invites comments, questions, and interaction.

Because of increasing restrictions on this way of communicating these days, we need to be sure that you want to receive our messages and we need a request directly from you. So please, email us immediately at info@hungernetohio.org if you are interested in becoming part of "HungerNetOhio."

View Past Issues of HungerNetOhio.

	Would you like more information about hunger or ways to make a difference?
	Do you need help developing social justice ministries in your congregation?
	Have you concerns which you would like help exploring?

Contact Bob Erickson, Director

Find your Congressperson at the Ohio Legislative Directory http://ohio.gov/GovState.stm#ohleg

"Oh, God, to those who have hunger, give bread;
and in those who have bread, create hunger for justice."
Latin American Prayer

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Hunger Network in Ohio
82 East 16th Avenue Columbus, Ohio 43201
Phone: 614-424-6203
E-mail: info@hungernetohio.org