"People think that hunger is a lost cause, that the problem is so huge, so massive there's nothing really you can do about it. And that's dead wrong!"

Arthur Simon, co-founder of Bread for the World, made that declaration Feb. 15 during the finale of a three-part lecture series on hunger at Holy Family Church in South Pasadena. What's needed to overcome such terrible apathy today, he stressed, is to see the world and its global problems through the lens of Christ --- and then to take on the responsibilities of bringing justice to the poor in this new light.

"Through the personal word of Jesus, through his life, death and resurrection, we are brought into the Kingdom of God," the former Lutheran pastor told more than 100 people at Holy Family. "We are given a new reality, and we begin to see everything in a different way. The world is the same out there, but we see it now through the lens of the Kingdom.

"Or, you might say, through the heart and mind of Christ we see ourselves in a different way, we see other people in a different way and the whole of creation. And one of the things we should be seeing differently is our role as citizens and the opportunity and the responsibility we have to bring justice to people who are poor and hungry.

"And that's my challenge to you tonight," he stressed. "In church we may give to relieve hunger. We may help in other ways to provide assistance. But if we are silent on public policy, we are blocking the efforts of the poor to help themselves more than we know."

As a young minister working for a decade in the Lower East Side of New York City, Simon found himself feeling overwhelmed, too. So in 1974 he and six other Protestants and seven Catholics founded Bread for the World as a Christian citizens' movement of individuals and churches to focus on public policy and education.

Today the organization has more than 55,000 members, including 2,500 churches. Through letter-writing campaigns and other means of advocacy, they lobby local, state and federal lawmakers on legislation that addresses hunger in the United States and around the world.

Simon, now retired but still on Bread for the World's board of directors, talked about the organization's current campaign to get the United States to live up to its pledges to reduce world hunger and to also substantially increase its assistance to the poorest countries through focused anti-poverty and anti-hunger programs.

He pointed out that currently the U.S. only targets less than one-half of one percent of its overall budget on poverty-focused development assistance and humanitarian aid. Forty times that amount is spent on the military.

"So the question is not can we afford to do it," he observed. "The question is do we have the will? Do we want to do it? And I kid you not, but we can make a difference if people like you are willing to step up to the plate and do your part and offer your citizenship to the war on behalf of the world's poor."

He said Bread for the World's aim is to build a "critical mass of aroused citizens" who will ultimately say that hunger is no longer condoned in the world.

"But to do that we need your help," Simon stressed. "We need you to see this through the lens of the Kingdom, the heart and mind of Christ. And then let your citizenship empower those who are poor and hungry."

'Tough year'
Jeff Dronkers, director of programs and agency relations for the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank, also spoke at the evening forum. He called 2005 a "tough year" for his organization, with supermarkets cutting back on donations while local community service agencies were reporting a growing number of people seeking food assistance.

In his PowerPoint presentation, he showed that a working class family of three with an average monthly income of $1,320 is spending some $1,200 of that on a one-bedroom apartment in Los Angeles County today. When limited government assistance plus transportation and medical expenses are factored in, the family comes up short month after month.

"This family starts out every month in the hole $254," he reported. "And that's who the basic hunger population is today. When I started food-banking 12 years ago, you could label hunger as the guy on the off ramp with a sign saying, 'will work for food' or some panhandlers on the street. But now it's working families who can't make ends meet."

Dronkers pointed out that the Bush Administration's recently proposed 2007 budget would completely eliminate the Commodity Supplemental Food Program (CSFP), cutting off some 8,000 seniors and women, children and infants in Los Angeles County and nearly 500,000 people across the country from weekly or monthly food boxes.

"CSFP is the only --- the only --- dedicated senior food program in the United States Department of Agriculture's arsenal," he reported. "There isn't another one. So I'm going to need your help in continuing this program by contacting your congressman. Because if we don't do what we need to do, this program is going to go away Oct. 1."

Christian contradiction
After the Holy Family forum, Simon told The Tidings that the organization was concerned that while hunger had lessened worldwide, it had actually risen in the United States.

"When Bread started in '74, 11.1 percent of the U.S. population was below the poverty line," he said. "Today it's 12.5 percent. And the hunger and poverty statistics almost always coincide.

"This is despite the fact that in the intervening 32 years we have grown enormously in terms of our economic income and capability, which means it's all the more scandalous."

Simon noted that hunger in America today was tolerated the same way slavery was tolerated 150 years ago. Both were inconsistent with Christian values.

"It's a contradiction, and we should rise above it," he said. "It's very clear from any reading of Scripture that God calls us to do that. Christians above all have a responsibility to end hunger. And the reason for rising above it is we say that we've been loved so much by God. How can we withhold that kind of love for others?"