Childhood Hunger

Bill Shore’s Letters

Letter Looking Back on 20 Years of Sharing Strength

June 2004

Dear Friend,

The independent commission investigating the terrorist attacks on September 11, reported in harrowing detail about how senior government officials reacted to the horrific crisis. The minute-by-minute account of how key players responded -- from the Vice President to Air Force generals to air traffic controllers -- scrambling jets, landing commercial aircraft, trying to reach one another and issuing orders, makes for riveting reading.

It is good government; good journalism and human nature to second-guess some of the decisions that were made. It is human nature to ask ourselves how we would have responded had we been in their shoes.

But of course most of us are in very different shoes, with different roles and responsibilities. For most of us the riveting issue is not how we respond to an extraordinary, unprecedented crisis that dominates the news of the world, but rather how we respond to the quiet, persistent crises, like hunger, malnutrition, and disease, that make little news but claim even more lives? If you believe as I do that this is one of the great moral challenges of our time, I hope you will support Share Our Strength's new campaign described below. The promise of democracy is that citizens are as important as the generals and presidents to whom they confer power. If our own minute-by-minute, day-by-day actions are some day studied and reviewed, how will our stewardship as citizens, be assessed or second-guessed?

Whether battling terrorism or hunger, few of us would argue that we couldn't do better. But as one of Share Our Strength's most critical supporters, you should know how much you have already done in the battle we've undertaken.

As Share Our Strength approaches its 20th anniversary this October, our impact over two decades is emerging as a dramatic story in its own right. For example:

1. Share Our Strength helped build the world's most sophisticated emergency food assistance network, guaranteeing that anyone hungry in America today has a place to go to get something to eat. Twenty years ago this was not the case. There were enormous gaps in coverage. We have raised and spent more than $170 million for everything from construction and transportation to staffing and evaluation, as well as advocacy efforts to affect public policy, and our acclaimed nutrition education program, Operation Frontline.
2. Share Our Strength grants have meant the difference between life and death for tens of thousands of human beings in famine struck nations like Ethiopia and in developing nations like Haiti, Guatemala, and Mexico.
3. We lead other nonprofits in creating the new community wealth essential to successfully fighting hunger and poverty. Neither charity nor government has proven sufficient to finance the fight against hunger. Only Share Our Strength has begun to create the new community wealth indispensable to addressing the problem of hunger on the scale at which it exists.
4. Share Our Strength's leadership, educational efforts and communication strengths have enabled us to recruit and motivate thousands of new leaders into the fight against hunger. From restaurateurs to school children, from fireman to Pulitzer Prize winning novelists, from corporate executives to the nutritional experts engaged in Operation Frontline, we have dramatically swelled the ranks of, and enhanced the diversity of anti-hunger activists, thereby strengthening the necessary political will to end hunger.

Our past success lays the foundation for our most ambitious undertaking yet: a new 20-year campaign dedicated to ending childhood hunger in America. It is an audacious campaign, to improve access to food assistance community by community, and to ensuring that children have access to food where they live, learn and play. It can only succeed with your support.

If you believe our track record positions Share Our Strength to lead and succeed, please contribute to Share Our Strength's Campaign to End Childhood Hunger.

If you believe we are voicing issues that others ignore, and our message must reach a wider audience, please contribute before the summer is over. If you believe we have a unique ability to inspire and engage others in effective civic action, please contribute to make that possible on a larger scale.

I have never been as convinced as I am today that we can succeed in ending hunger among America's children. The poet, Nordahl Grieg, once wrote:

"Noble is man
Rich is the earth
Where there is hunger or need there is betrayal."

During 20 years of fighting hunger I had not thought of it this way, but I now see its truth.

When families living on food stamps can't make their meals last until the end of the month, it is a form of betrayal.

When the 10 million children eligible to receive summer feeding have to rely on food pantries and soup kitchens because of too few feeding sites and too much bureaucracy, it is a form of betrayal.

When children without health insurance receive their medical care in an emergency room, rather than from a family pediatrician, it is a form of betrayal.

When 34 million Americans still live below the official poverty line in a nation blessed with more abundance than any on earth, it is a form of betrayal.

I know such betrayal is anathema to all you value, and that so much of your life has been dedicated instead to keeping faith with those in need and to sharing strength. Please help us ensure that if some commission reviews our response to the important events of our time, the record will reflect that we acted with unflagging urgency, unfettered vision, and unyielding generosity of spirit.

Nordahl Grieg is right. Rich is the earth. Noble is man. I write to you with gratitude for that nobility. As always, thanks and please keep in touch.

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