Dear Plenty Friends,

If this latest Plenty Bulletin has a theme, it’s clearly about kids. If you want to know how a community, a culture, a nation is doing, check the kids. By the same token, it has become a central tenet of Plenty that if you want to do something for any community, start with the kids, the babies, the children, the young adults, because they’re the ones who inherit the world we leave, and it would seem to be our responsibility to leave them a world a little better than what we inherited, right?

Just recently the U.S. Census Bureau came out with a report card for America. It said, approximately 35.8 million people lived below the poverty line in 2003. That was up from 34.5 million, in 2002. The rise was more dramatic for children. There were 12.9 million living in poverty last year. That was an increase of about 800,000 from 2002. The gap between rich and poor in America is the widest in 70 years, according to a new study published by the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities.

Worldwide, poor nutrition causes nearly one in three people to die prematurely or have disabilities, according to the World Health Organization. Pregnant women, new mothers who breastfeed infants, and children are among the most at risk of undernourishment. More than five and a half million children die every year from hunger-related causes. Most of these deaths are attributed, not to outright starvation, but to diseases that attack vulnerable children whose bodies have been weakened by hunger.

Next year, the U.S. will spend more than $400 billion on military expenses (not counting the costs of the war on Iraq) or, to put that rather fantastic number into perspective, one million, six hundred and sixty-eight thousand times Plenty’s annual budget. What’s really heartbreaking is that not only are none of those billions being used to help the kids, many billions are being used for the tools of modern warfare that kill indiscriminately, military personnel and civilians, including children. When do we, as a species, decide that war is inhuman and turn our full attention to creating peace and making our only planet more livable for all?

"It’s no longer a choice between violence and non-violence, but a choice between non-violence or non-existence. —Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Never has there been a good war or a bad peace." —Benjamin Franklin

"Either war is obsolete or men are."—R. Buckminster Fuller

"How we live shapes the entire world. Poverty happens, war happens, when all the little bad decisions of a nation’s people accumulate and find political expression. We cannot have world peace without peace in our own lives. Peace is first a private matter. It cannot grow except from there. Aren’t we privileged to live in a time when everything is at stake, and when our efforts make a difference in the eternal contest between the forces of light and shadow, between togetherness and division? Between justice and exploitation? Oh, be joyful that you are a warrior in this great time! Will we rise to this battle? If so, we cannot lose, for rising up to it is our victory. Will we rise up? Will we represent love in the world? If we represent love in the world, you see, we have already won." —Doris Granny D Haddock

These things we believe: Children dying from hunger is unacceptable. If we’re fair about it there is enough for everyone—plenty. War is not an option. Violence begets violence. Global warming threatens catastrophe for future generations if we don’t act. Our task is daunting but every one of us has the power to make a difference, and the more we do together out of love, the bigger the difference we will make.

Thank you for lending a hand.

Sincerely,

Peter Schweitzer
Executive Director