Children & Poverty: The Bishops Initiative

Prayer Guide: November 2004

Prayer

Prayer Focus: That all children will have nourishing food each day.

• November 1-6: Pray for children who live on family farms around the world and still may not have enough food to eat.
• November 7-13: Pray for children whose families must do some of their grocery shopping at food pantries.
• November 14-20: Pray for teenagers who eat most of their meals with their friends at fast food restaurants.
• November 21-27: Pray for children who have only one meal a day.

Call to Action

Learn more by visiting with the director of your local food bank or pantry. Find out what your church can do to ensure adequate nutrition for children. Ask a school nurse how many children come to school hungry each day. Investigate the need to feed children in your own or a nearby neighborhood during the summer. Study Hunger No More, a six-lesson study for adults and youth developed by Bread for the World. Call 212.870.2299 or visit www.ncccusa.org for information.

Identify issues related to food and nutrition in your own neighborhood, the wider community or around the world.

Act by serving meals in a shelter or soup kitchen or by volunteering at a pantry. Work with others to organize a free breakfast program during the school year or a lunch program for hungry children in the summer. Encourage families in your church to prepare simpler meals for Thanksgiving and to give the money they save to a local pantry. Organize a gleaning project with youth by contacting the Society of St. Andrew at 1.800.333.4597 or www.endhunger.org.

Plan to work with others to produce Lazarus: A Musical on Hunger and Poverty for your church and others in the community (available from Bread for the World).