'Hunger No More' brings more than 1,500 to Washington National Cathedral.

Some 1,500 people filled the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., on June 6, on the eve of National Hunger Awareness Day. "It was an historic event gathering people of many traditions and faiths together with the unifying desire to overcome hunger in our lifetime," said Stan Noffinger, general secretary of the General Board, following the worship convocation titled "Hunger No More." The event surpassed all expectations of the planners, he said.

With sponsorship from the Alliance to End Hunger, Bread for the World, America's Second Harvest, the National Food Bank, Call to Renewal, and the Interfaith Anti-Hunger Coordinators, the convocation brought more than 40 religious leaders of various faith traditions together in a moving service of worship, Noffsinger said. The Church of the Brethren General Board, and the Brethren Witness/Washington Office, were endorsers of the event. At least six Brethren were in attendance, including Noffsinger and co-executive director of On Earth Peace Barbara Sayler.

"Participants set aside the differences that tend to divide the faith traditions to address the increasing incidence of hunger in the US," Noffsinger said. Different faith traditions shared leadership of the worship. The keynote speaker was Anglican archbishop Njongonkulu W.H. Ndungane of Cape Town, South Africa, whose life story includes imprisonment as a political prisoner under apartheid law. "I know hunger firsthand," he said, reminding worshipers that in the US, the richest country in the world, hunger is increasing. He called on people of faith to speak loudly and clearly to end hunger, with the goal of food for everyone being a human right. "The promise of heaven is no more hunger," he said. "But...the plight of the hungry must not be left for heaven."

In the last four years, decades of progress in shrinking the numbers of the hungry in the US have been reversed, Noffsinger said. Bread for the World said in its annual hunger report for 2004 that 853 million people worldwide are hungry, he reported. Of that number, 36 million in the US are "food insecure," meaning that they do not always know if they will have access to safe and nutritious food at their next meal, he said.

Just prior to the convocation, faith leaders met in an "upper room" of the cathedral--stories above the streets of Washington--to discuss the issues. A new coalition was formed, Noffsinger said, to bring the plight of the hungry into the awareness of each denomination and faith group represented. The group signed a common letter to the President of the United States, which was delivered by a small delegation which met with White House staff on June 7. The letter encouraged the President to provide strong leadership in "protecting the national nutrition programs from funding cuts and damaging structural changes. We also ask you to use this year's G8 Summit to increase development assistance and debt relief and to forge trade policies that will help to reduce hunger, poverty, and disease in Africa and other poor parts of the world." Participants at the convocation gathered for training June 7 to prepare for a major lobbying effort on hunger issues later that day.

Paul Wolfowitz, the new president of the World Bank, unexpectedly joined the convocation worship service, Noffsinger said, adding that Wolfowitz received "a warm welcome" from the religious leaders and convocation attendees.

For more information and links to the webcast of the convocation, see www.bread.org/nationalgathering/2005/convocation.htm.

Source: 06/08/2005 Newsline
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