Thursday, June 25, 2009

2009 Bread Lobby Day a success

I couldn't attend Bread for the World's Lobby Day in Washington, DC to lobby for Foreign Assistance Reform, but many of my colleagues did. Sounds like it was a great success. I, myself, followed up a week later with the RESULTS group (more on that later!)...but I did keep my Bread hat on and made sure we talked about Foreign Aid as well to reinforce the message! Here's a Bread update about it... -ccyl

------------------------------------------

Foreign Assistance Reform

Lobby Day 2009, held June 16, was an enormous success! Some 320 participants from 38 states held more than 180 meetings with members of Congress or their staff.
By the end of the week, 11 more members of Congress cosponsored H.R. 2139, the Initiating Foreign Assistance Reform Act of 2009. The bill’s lead sponsor, Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA), received more than 25 phone calls from other congressional offices asking for more information.
As of yesterday, H.R. 2139 had 46 cosponsors. More are set to cosponsor as a result of Lobby Day and your calls and letters.
We are preparing for the introduction of an initial foreign assistance reform bill in the Senate within the next few weeks.
Thank you to all who attended, and also to all who could not attend Lobby Day but phoned their representatives about H.R. 2139.

No comments: