wfn.org | [PCUSANEWS] 35 years of feeding the hungry

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Note #8396 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

35 years of feeding the hungry
GA04103
July 1, 2004

35 years of feeding the hungry

Presbyterian Hunger Program has provided $100 million in relief

by Pat Cole

RICHMOND, July 1 - The Presbyterian Hunger Program (PHP) was founded 35 years
ago by church members committed to a Biblical vision of a world without
hunger, a leader of the church's hunger-relief ministry told commissioners to
the 216th General Assembly Thursday.

Presbyterians had long responded generously to famines and supported hungry
neighbors through the One Great Hour of Sharing offering, said Gary Cook, the
PC(USA)'s associate director for global service and witness, "but something
new happened in 1969."

That's when Presbyterians organized PHP, "a multifaceted program that would
move us toward" a world where everybody has enough to eat, said Cook, who
until last month was coordinator of PHP.

Television images of starvation in Africa and severe poverty in Appalachia
stirred the compassion of Americans in the 1960s, Cook said.

"It was in the churches, however, that concerned people geared up for the
long run," he said. "Led by the Presbyterian Women, both of our predecessor
denominations began to organize for a battle against hunger."

In 1969, the Presbyterian Church in the US declared hunger "a major priority"
and gave birth to the PHP, he said, but by end of the 1970s the hunger
programs of the PCUS and the United Presbyterian Church in the USA were
working together. They merged their operations before 1983, when the reunion
of the two denominations created the Presbyterian Church (USA).

At its founding, Cook said, the program adopted five approaches to fighting
hunger and its causes, which still  guide its work:

*Feeding people in immediate need;

*Helping people help themselves;

*Educating people about the causes and cures of hunger;

*Mobilizing people to advocate governmental and social action to alleviate
hunger;

*Challenging Christians to live simpler lives and to share what they have
with others.

PHP, which addresses hunger in the United States and overseas, has given
nearly $100 million to partner churches, grassroots organizations, community
ministries and educational and advocacy programs, Cook said.

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