A big part of the food we provide to our guests at CrossRoads comes from the USDA Commodity Program. This is food bought by our government from farmers and distributed to food banks throughout the country, including CrossRoads. The purpose is to feed hungry people in our communities. CrossRoads gets this food from HACAP for 12 cents a pound. That cost is far less than it would cost us or our donors to buy it from grocery stores.
Now we have a big problem. Congress already cut the program 30% this year. We are really feeling the pinch at CrossRoads and can only turn to our donors to make up for the lost food – at retail prices.
To make matters worse, the US House of Representatives just passed a new bill to cut this program ANOTHER 20%. The bill is called HR 2112. If the same 20% is passed by the Senate, the value of the food lost this year to just the food banks supplied by HACAP will be $632,168!
The US Senate’s appropriations bill is still being written. This gives us a chance to encourage our Senators Grassley and Harkin to vote to keep all the current funding in the Senate bill. Then the matter will have to be decided in a conference committee with representatives of both the Senate and House.
We can’t buy enough food from HACAP to meet all the requests for food at CrossRoads. The 30% cut we’ve already received comes on top of a huge growth in demand for food. A year ago, we were feeding about 800 people a month. Look at the growth in people fed:
| June 2010 | 800+ |
| October 2010 | 1200+ |
| January 2011 | 900+ |
| April 2011 | 1400+ |
| June 2011 | 1600+ |
(A bright spot is that Quaker now provides cereals, crackers and snacks directly to us for free. We don’t get it through HACAP for even the 12 cents a pound. This is important. Thank you, Quaker! Individual, business and church donations are critical beyond description. Thank you, Donors! You now provide way more than half the food we distribute in a month.)
How can you help?
1. Please write or phone Senators Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Tom Harkin (D-IA). You will find contact info at the end of this letter .Phone calls to the local offices are good. Handwritten letters and email letters are good, too.
· Tell them your relationship to the CrossRoads Mission food pantry: person receiving food, volunteer, financial and/or food donor, or board member.
· Tell them how another 20% cut to the USDA Commodity Program will hurt hungry people in our community.
· Ask them to pass the Senate appropriations bill without further cuts to the USDA Commodity Program.
· Tell them that our donors are trying to keep up with the need, but the growth is so fast that we had only cereal and crackers to give for parts of the last month. More cuts will worsen an already critical situation for the hungry.
2. Please write the Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack. Explain the situation at the mission as above. You are not asking him to fund the House or Senate appropriation bills for commodities – that’s not his decision, but to direct specific discretionary funds within his own budget to the commodities program.
| Senator Chuck Grassley 135 Hart Senate Office Building Washington, DC 20510 Cedar Rapids District Office 319-363-6832
| Senator Tom Harkin 731 Hart Senate Office Building Washington, DC 20510 Cedar Rapids District Office 319-365-4504 |
| Secretary of Agriculture – Tom Vilsack US Dept of Agriculture 1400 Independence Ave SW Washington DC 20250 1-202-720-3631 |
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“Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter – when you see the naked, to clothe him, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood? Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and hour healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard.” Isaiah 58: 7-8
Vicar Pat Kane - executive director, CrossRoads Mission, Cedar Rapids, Iowa
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