We’re about to hit 100,000 friends on our Rick Steves Facebook page (like us to help me reach that number) — and I’ve decided to celebrate that milestone by funding a $100,000 initiative to protect the poorest Americans from cuts in government programs.
The first step in this project has been to have President Obama and Governor Romney each create a three-minute video that explains what he plans to do as president to fight hunger and poverty. These videos have been completed, and you can view them now.
Here’s why I got involved: An organization I admire, Bread for the World, has joined a coalition of Christian organizations across the political spectrum — from both conservative churches and liberal churches — to encourage our next president, whether Obama or Romney, to maintain a “Circle of Protection” around our nation’s hungry people as necessary cuts are made in government programs.
Their ingenious initiative establishes that hunger is neither a Republican nor a Democratic issue. And it will keep “hunger in America” on the agenda in a constructive way regardless of who occupies the White House after the election.
The $100,000 gift from Rick Steves’ Europe Through the Back Door will help promote these video clips in addition to funding a special hunger education program for thousands of churches in America. Through this program, we hope to hold our next president accountable for promises made about ending hunger. It will also pay for Bread for the World staffers to follow-through in the months after the election, working in our nation’s capital to protect the programs most vital to our poorest citizens.
We believe our travelers have a world view and care about hunger. The stark truth is: one in four American children is “food insecure” and the number is growing. We’ve long supported Bread for the World, and their Circle of Protection campaign has already prevented deep and egregious cuts to programs vital to the poorest people in America and around the world.
Please help us get to 100,000. Visit my Facebook page and “like” us. Share this with your friends. Together we can impress upon our next president and congress that fighting poverty and hunger needs to be a top priority.
Happy travels,
Rick Steves
Hunger even among the middle class, rising food prices, rising gas prices, incomes dropping by 8%, the longest sustained unemployment rate in US history, first time credit downgrades, unprecedented debt in the trillions — all as a result of this current president’s failed policies — we already know what Obama’s policies are. Destructive to say the least. I think we all know what needs to be done to turn things around in this country.
No, Jan, the trillions of debt were started by Bush Mark 2, who took a budget IN SURPLUS from Clinton and put it into debt through massive tax cuts to the already wealthy, another attempt to implement this ludicrous “trickle down” theory. You don’t boost the economy by giving money to those who can just salt it away in (offshore) bank accounts. You boost the economy by giving the money to the people who have no option but to SPEND it on goods and thus enable the companies manufacturing those goods to take on extra employees.
I noticed a front page article in the New York Times within the past few days which delved into
youth in Spain dumpster diving for food because 50% of younger people are unemployed. Spain Recoils As Its Hungry Forage Trash Bins For Its Next Meal is dated 24 Sept. 2012. As for Jan, Obama got handed a mess made over 8 years but repubs demand he fix it in 4. Typical.
What a great initiative! I support Rick in this endeavor and agree with the foundational issue of helping the hungry in our own country. I also think President Obama’s policies in this area simply cannot be sustained with success. It is time to move in a different direction.
Great initiative. Sorry to see it has been sullied here by an instant descent into political mud-slinging.
However, I refuse, and will continue to refuse, to use Facebook. I value my privacy too highly.
This is a great initiative. I have always thought as great as it was to help poverty around the world, I wonder why we are not helping the truely poor here in the United States. The argument goes on about how many people in this country receive food stamps and how much it has grown. I personally just don’t participate in Face Book because of many many reasons.
Charity begins at home. Of course, if our political leaders were serious about confronting the issue of poverty Rick’s initiative wouldn’t be so urgently necessary.
Estermay, I would not rule out a revolution. I would not want to see it hapepn, but it gets more likely every time our government redistributes more and more of our wealth or takes away another freedom that we didn’t give them permission to take. At some point, they will get to the “straw that broke the camel’s back.”Good post Kris. Any particular brand of tea?