Summer Fellowship: Mobilization to End Poverty!

Submitted by oalston on August 1, 2008 - 7:09pm.

Some say that the issue of poverty is the most pressing issue of our time. Everyday millions of people die due to poverty related causes. As people of faith dedicated to the Beatitudes we are called to deal with the issue of poverty in a responsible manner. This summer at Sojourners I worked on the Vote Out Poverty Campaign and The Mobilization to End Poverty. The Vote Out Poverty Campaign is a grassroots campaign that seeks to hold voters and elected officials accountable to cut domestic poverty in half over the next decade, and achieve the Millennium Development Goals, a set of international goals for reducing global poverty. The Vote Out Poverty Campaign will culminate with the Mobilization to End Poverty from April 26-29, 2009 in Washington, DC. Christians from all over the country will come together to hold our elected officials accountable to putting poverty at the top of our nation’s agenda.

Churches, organizations, universities and seminaries will be sending delegations of teams to this event. If bringing an end to poverty is important to your faith please join us for this historic event. For more information about the Vote Out Poverty Campaign and the Mobilization to End Poverty please visit
www.voteoutpoverty.org, or email voteoutpoverty@sojo.net.

As we think about the issue of poverty let’s remember Christ words concerning, the poor, hungry and persecuted:
Blessed are you who are poor,
for yours is the kingdom of God.
Blessed are you who are hungry now,
for you will be filled.
Blessed are you who weep now,
for you will laugh.
Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man.
Rejoice in that Day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets.
But woe to you who are rich,
for you have received your consolation.
Woe to you who are full now,
for you will be hungry.
Woe to you who are laughing now,
for you will mourn and weep.
Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets. –Luke 6:20-26

Onleilove Alston is a native of Brooklyn, New York, and serves Sojourners in the Policy and Organizing department as a Beatitudes Fellow. She is a student in the dual M.Div/MSW program at Union Theological Seminary and Columbia University. In NYC she organizes with The Poverty Initiative and New York Faith & Justice.

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