BRUNSWICK

Bread for the World isn’t looking to combat hunger by collecting money.

Its members are doing so by contacting members of Congress, asking them to change policy.

And Bread for the World isn’t trying to alleviate hunger and poverty. It’s trying to eliminate it.

The goal might be daunting, but this Christian collective with thousands of members writes personal letters and emails and meets with public officials, including members of Congress, to meet its objectives.

To make change in the world, more people need to be engaged in advocacy, according to Christine DeTroy of Brunswick, one of the advocates with Bread for the World Maine.

She and other members of the Brunswick United Methodist Church are working on a letter right now, as a matter of fact.

“We have an April 21 letter planned to Maine’s congressional delegation,” DeTroy said from her tidy home. “We’re telling them sequestration is the wrong approach. Please work to fund the programs.”

Those programs include the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program; earned income and child tax credits; Women, Infants and Children aid; and global anti-poverty programs.

But eliminating hunger?

“We believe it is possible,” DeTroy said, “as long as we have the will. Unfortunately, people often think, ‘What can I do?’”

Members of Brunswick United Methodist and the other 25 churches of Bread for the World send out letters in spring and autumn.

DeTroy knows something about what it’s like to be on the wrong side of life’s fortunes. She was a teenager in northern Germany during World War II, living in constant fear, oppression and hunger.

“I know what it feels like,” she said. “I don’t need to pass that one on. The world is a family, and I will not let my brothers and sisters go hungry, or in poverty. ‘I was hungry, and you gave me bread.’ ”

Last year, the Maine group sent no fewer than 4,991 Offerings of Letters to Congress.
Ted Bradbury of the Bath United Methodist Church, and vice chairman of Bread for the World Maine, is proud of that number.

“The letter count is truly extraordinary, and we have succeeded in preventing serious budget cuts to our programs for the poor by Congress,” Bradbury wrote in his 2012 annual report.
In November, Bradbury and the Rev. Marilyn Ruff of Portland, the Maine group’s chairwoman, met with U.S. Sen. Susan Collins via teleconference.

The meeting, Bradbury wrote, was “constructive.”

Bradbury points to victories such as tax relief, unemployment insurance authorization, the Job Creation Act, earned income tax credit and the child tax credit. The group also succeeded in helping prevent deep cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, he wrote.

DeTroy, too, believes Bread is making a difference.

“I think we’re raising awareness,” she said. “We are educating.”

Nancy Adkins, coordinator for Church and Community for the American Baptist Women’s Ministry National Executive Board, wrote in a recent Bread for the World piece: “People today still often feel helpless, hopeless, stressed, afraid and alone. Today, they are all around you. 

“Do you see them? Yours are the eyes with which he looks compassion on the world.”