Funds will be used in the US and around the globe to address issues related to hunger and poverty
by Darla Carter | Presbyterian News Service
Natural disasters, such as flooding, can impact people’s ability to thrive. (Photo by Valéry Nodem)
LOUISVILLE — In an effort to address the root causes of hunger and poverty around the world, the Advisory Committee of the Presbyterian Hunger Program has voted to approve nearly $1.2 million in new grants to fund projects in 25 countries, including the United States.
The eight-member committee of lay and clergy leaders approved 102 grants over the course of multiple days after faithfully reviewing applications and coming together online with PHP staff to discuss the applicants’ proposals.
“Just reading what people are doing really gave me a lot of hope,” said the Rev. Meghan Davis-Brass, a member of the Advisory Committee who’s also the associate pastor of Westminster Presbyterian Church in Des Moines, Iowa. “It’s really impressive to know — in the midst of all that there is in this country and in this world to be upset and concerned about — that there are really amazing people doing amazing things.”
The Rev. Meghan Davis-Brass (Photo by Rich Copley)
Some of the U.S. groups that will benefit from the grants, which are partly funded by One Great Hour of Sharing, include North Carolina’s BeLoved Asheville, which will be working to increase ways of bringing the community together to celebrate diverse food cultures and to do food justice advocacy; the Black Farmer Fund, which invests in Black agricultural and food businesses in the Northeast; and Change Today, Change Tomorrow, a Kentucky group that provides families and community members in West Louisville with access to fresh, nutritious groceries.
“Because our denomination’s hunger grants address root causes of hunger, we are able to impact people struggling with displacement, violence, housing insecurity, unsafe labor standards, low wages, hazardous environmental conditions, structural racism, gender inequality and more,” said the Rev. Rebecca Barnes, PHP’s coordinator. “In this way, we show that the church is a true partner in struggling communities. It is one way we can answer Jesus’ call to feed the hungry, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, and to work so that all may have life and have it abundantly.”
That includes those served by PHP partners in other countries. For example, people in Cameroon will receive water filters and more-efficient stoves as result of a PHP grant to the African Centre for Renewable Energies and Sustainable Technologies (ACREST). Funding to Atfaluna Society for Deaf Children in Gaza will help provide hot meals for displaced persons and to establish a community kitchen. Meanwhile, a grant to Asociación Red Uniendo Manos El Salvador (ARUMES) will help to enhance ongoing public advocacy and awareness around the negative effects of agrotoxins from the Salvadoran sugarcane industry.
Derrick Weston
“They’re really working to reform the whole agricultural system, trying to think about more local farming, more organic and regenerative farming and really trying to push back against the sugarcane industry in the country,” said Advisory Committee Co-Chair Derrick Weston, who serves as theological training and education coordinator for Creation Justice Ministries.
Early on in the series of committee meetings last week, National Hunger Associate Andrew Kang Bartlett provided an overview of challenges facing people and partners today in the areas of technology, social inequality, climate change and environmental injustice.
Since the “2020 racial uprising (in the U.S.), few cities and states have made substantial changes and many have regressed, passing legislation challenging affirmative action and voter rights and many new anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-immigrant laws, and these are reflections of increased political polarization,” Kang Bartlett said. “Hunger and poverty continue, and the gap between the rich and everyone else increases. We have a national affordable housing crisis, and related to rampant social media use, in many cases, is an epidemic of attempted and realized suicide, especially among young people,” and “certainly people are waking up to the urgent need to address climate change as extreme weather, disasters, wildfires and rising sea levels continue.”
Many of those and other issues, such as environmental racism, are being addressed by PHP partners, “from native Alaskans fighting toxics to immigrant farm workers claiming their dignity and rights in Florida, in New York and elsewhere, from Somali Bantu refugees struggling for food sovereignty to CBCOs around the country and Korean Americans in Los Angeles trying to increase affordable housing, from workers fighting wage theft in Nashville to communities challenging incinerators poisoning their air in Chicago, to Iowans challenging the ravaging of our health, soil and democracy by agri-food corporations,” he said. “Our grantee partners and thousands of other civil society groups across the U.S. are literally, tirelessly working to breach that gap and create just, sustainable, mutual-aid solutions to turn the corner toward a more just and caring economy and society.”
BeLoved Asheville is among this year’s grant recipients. (Photo by Jennifer Evans)
As part of PHP’s commitment to sustainable living and Earth care concerns, the committee opted to award $25,000 in Presbyterian Tree Fund grants for projects in Alabama, New York, Madagascar, Minnesota and Peru. Most of the funding for those grants comes from voluntary Presbyterian “carbon offset” donations combined with the contribution of Presbyterian Mission Agency staff travel budget lines, Barnes said.
“These contributions are a sort of “carbon offset” so that we can do good carbon sequestration and tree-planting even as we jet around the country and world in order to fulfill our responsibilities — whether as individual Presbyterians or as national denominational staff,” she said. “The Presbyterian Hunger Program often also helps undergird these grants with some extra support because we believe in the partnerships and the work happening and that alleviating climate change impacts will also alleviate hunger around the world.”
The Tree Fund grants will be used in a variety of ways, including tree-planting and practicing agricultural methods, such as Silvopasture, that sequester carbon.
Barnes applauds the advisory committee for the time and effort it took to review the project proposals.
“They read all our grant applications and gather each fall for multiple Zoom sessions to discuss and decide on them,” Barnes said. “Given that we often are processing 90-100 grant applications, this is a huge act of service, and we are so very grateful for them.”
PHP’s staff contributes to the process by working behind the scenes, double-checking applications, budgets and past year’s reports, Barnes said. They also maintain year-round relationships and visit when appropriate. “Our relationships are ones of mutual learning and joy,” she said. “I’m grateful for the witness of our grant partners and the light they bring around the world—and that we get to be a part of their success stories.”
The Presbyterian Hunger Program is one of the Compassion, Peace and Justice ministries of the Presbyterian Mission Agency.
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