[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 74 (Tuesday, June 7, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6129-S6133]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                     National Hunger Awareness Day

  Mrs. DOLE. Mr. President, for the past two years I have come to the 
Senate floor on National Hunger Awareness Day to talk about the battle 
against hunger, both here in America and around the world. In fact, I 
reserved my maiden speech for this topic--one of my top priorities as a 
U.S. Senator. I have stated over and over again that the battle against 
hunger is one that can't be won in a matter of months or even a few 
years but it is a victory that we can claim if we continue to make the 
issue a priority.
  As Washington Post columnist David Broder said about hunger, 
``America has some problems that seem to defy solution. This one does 
not. It just needs caring people and a caring government, working 
together.'' I could not agree more.
  Last year on Hunger Awareness Day, Senators Smith, Durbin, Lincoln, 
and I launched the Senate Hunger Caucus, with the express purpose of 
providing a bi-partisan forum for Senators and staff to engage each 
other on national and international hunger and food insecurity issues. 
By hosting briefings and disseminating information, the caucus has been 
striving to bring awareness to these issues, while at the same time 
finding ways to collaborate on legislation. I want to thank 34 of my 
colleagues for joining the Senate Hunger Caucus and their staffs for 
their diligent work. In addition, I am excited to see our friends in 
the House of Representatives start their own Hunger Caucus and I look 
forward to working with them as both houses of Congress continue to 
find solutions to eliminating hunger.
  It is truly astounding how so many of our fellow citizens go hungry 
or are living on the edge of hunger each and every day. Thirteen 
million of these hungry Americans are deemed to be children.
  As we know, when children are hungry they do not learn. This is a 
travesty that can and should be prevented. Currently over 90,000 
schools and 28 million children participate each school day in the 
School Lunch Program. The children of families whose income levels are 
below 130 percent of poverty are eligible for free school meals and 
those families whose income levels are between 130 percent of poverty 
and 185 percent of poverty are eligible for reduced price meals.
  Unfortunately, many State and local school boards have informed me 
that parents are finding it difficult to pay the reduced fee, and for 
some families the fee is an insurmountable barrier to participation. 
That is why I am a strong supporter of legislation to eliminate the 
reduced price fee and harmonize the free income guideline with the WIC 
income guideline. I am proud to say that a pilot program to eliminate 
the reduced price fee in up to five states was included in last year's 
reauthorization of Child Nutrition and WIC. I have encouraged the 
Appropriations Committee to include funding for this pilot program, and 
I look forward to working with them on this very important issue which 
touches so many families going through difficult times.

  In my home State of North Carolina, more than 900,000 of our 8.2 
million residents are dealing with hunger, according to the most recent 
numbers from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Our State has faced 
significant economic hardship over the last few years as once thriving 
towns have been hit hard by the closing of textile mills and furniture 
factories. And this story is not unlike so many others across the 
country.
  Many Americans who have lost their manufacturing jobs have been 
fortunate enough to find new employment in the changing climate of 
today's workforce. Simply being able to hold down job doesn't 
necessarily guarantee your family three square meals a day. But there 
are organizations who are addressing this need as a mission field.
  Groups like the Society of St. Andrew, the only comprehensive program 
in North Carolina that gleans available produce from farms, and then 
sorts, packages, processes, transports and delivers excess food to feed 
the hungry. In 2004, the Society gleaned more than 4.2 million pounds 
of food--or 12.8 million servings. Incredibly--it only costs one penny 
a serving to glean and deliver this food to those in need. And all of 
this work is done by the hands of the 9,200 volunteers and a tiny 
staff.
  Gleaning is a practice we should utilize much more extensively today. 
It's astounding that the most recent figures available indicate that 
approximately 96 billion pounds of good, nutritious food--including 
that at the farm and retail level--is left over or thrown

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away. A tomato farmer in western North Carolina sends 20,000 pounds of 
tomatoes to landfills each day during harvest season.
  This can't be good for the environment. In fact, food is the single 
largest component of our solid waste stream--more than yard trimmings 
or even newspaper. Some of it does decompose, but it often takes 
several years. Other food just sits in landfills, literally mummified. 
Putting this food to good use through gleaning will reduce the amount 
of waste going to our already overburdened landfills. And I am so 
appreciative of my friends at Environmental Defense for working closely 
with us on this issue.
  Like any humanitarian endeavor, the gleaning system works because of 
cooperative efforts. Clearly private organizations and individuals are 
doing a great job, but they are doing so with limited resources. It is 
up to us to make some changes on the public side and help leverage 
scarce dollars to feed the hungry.
  I continue to hear that transportation is the single biggest concern 
for gleaners. I am proud to say that with the help of organizations 
such as the American Trucking Association, the Society of Saint Andrew 
and America's Second Harvest, we are taking steps to ease that 
transportation concern. In February of this year, I reintroduced a bill 
that will change the tax code to give transportation companies tax 
incentives for volunteering trucks to transfer gleaned food. I am proud 
to have the support of my colleagues, Senators Dodd, Burr, Lugar, 
Alexander, Santorum, Durbin, Lautenberg, and Lincoln, original 
cosponsors, and I look forward to working with them on passage of this 
important bill.

  I am also privileged to work with Senators Lincoln and Lautenberg on 
a soon-to-be-introduced bill to provide up to $200,000 per fiscal year 
to eligible entities willing to carry out food rescue and job training. 
Entities like the Community Culinary School of Charlotte, a private, 
non-profit organization in my home State that provides training and job 
placement in the food service industry for people who are employed or 
underemployed.
  Here is how it works. The Community Culinary School recruits students 
from social service agencies, homeless shelters, halfway houses and 
work release programs. They then work in collaboration with food rescue 
agencies in the area to provide meals to homebound individuals and to 
local homeless shelters. The food they rescue is donated and picked up 
from restaurants, grocers and wholesalers. The students then prepare 
nutritious meals using the donated food while at the same time 
developing both culinary and life skills.
  Take a young lady from this program named Sibyl. After years of 
drugs, prisons and unplanned pregnancies, Sibyl entered the Community 
Culinary School of Charlotte. Her willingness and determination made 
her the top student of her class and she is today working full time as 
a chef.
  Or take Bobby, who also graduated from the program. Bobby went from 
unemployment and homelessness to becoming a top graduate, now working 
two jobs and living independently. Our bill is intended to complement 
these kinds of private efforts that support food rescue and job skills 
that can make the greatest impact on individual lives.
  In Deuteronomy 15:7, the Bible tells us, ``If there is among you a 
poor man, one of your brethren, in any of your towns within your land 
which the Lord your God gives you, you shall not harden your heart or 
shut your hand against your poor brother.'' So, as our fellow citizens 
in the private sector continue to be a giving people, let us find ways 
as public servants to once again harness the great public-private 
effort, and fight as one to end hunger in America. I again thank my 
colleagues who have worked so hard to build these partnerships. And I 
implore our friends on both sides of the aisle--as well as the good 
people throughout this great country--to join in this heartfelt 
mission--this grassroots network of compassion that transcends 
political ideology and will provide hope and security not only for 
those in need today--but for future generations as well. I yield the 
floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas.
  Mrs. LINCOLN. Mr. President, due to his graciousness, I ask unanimous 
consent that Senator Kennedy be allowed to speak directly after I 
complete my remarks.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mrs. LINCOLN. Mr. President, I want to pay a tremendous compliment 
with a huge sense of gratitude to my colleague from North Carolina for 
her tirelessness with regard to this issue. She has been such an 
incredible fighter against the issue of hunger among Americans and 
really among her fellow man globally. I compliment her and thank her so 
much for the opportunity to work with her on something in which she has 
been a true leader. I am looking forward to many more things that we 
can do together, but she has made a huge effort in eliminating hunger.
  We are here today to refocus ourselves and rededicate ourselves to 
bringing about a tremendous awareness to hunger as it exists in our 
Nation and certainly as it exists among our fellow man across the 
globe. I thank the Senator from North Carolina for all of her hard 
work.
  I do come to the floor to join my colleague from North Carolina on an 
issue that I take very seriously. Thirty-six million Americans, 
including 13 million children, live on the verge of hunger. It is 
absolutely phenomenal to me, growing up as a farmer's daughter in the 
Mississippi Delta where there was such plenty in the fields, as I drive 
past them, to think that there are Americans, particularly American 
children, who go hungry every day not because we don't have the means 
but because we don't organize ourselves and set the priority of making 
sure these future generations, the future leaders of this great Nation, 
can at least have their tummies full enough that they can pay attention 
in school, grow healthy to become the kind of leaders that we want and 
need for our great Nation.
  Today is National Hunger Awareness Day. It is a time when Americans 
are called to remember the hungry children and adults living across our 
Nation. We have all just come from our weekly caucus lunches. We have 
had plenty at this time. We are thinking about the opportunities that 
lie ahead of us, particularly the fun things that children do in the 
summertime. Yet we forget that there are many who have not had a good 
lunch today, or perhaps we forget that as school is letting out, those 
children who normally get a nutritious meal at school will not be 
getting those nutritious meals during the summertime while school is 
out.
  Most importantly, it is a day when we are called to put our words 
into action, to help end hunger in our communities and across this 
great land.
  At this time last year, Senators Smith, Durbin, Dole, and myself 
formed the Senate Hunger Caucus to forge a bipartisan effort to end 
hunger in our Nation and around the world. I am so proud to be working 
with these three other Senators in moving this caucus forward. Our 
staffs have worked tirelessly in bringing us together, along with the 
other Members of the Senate, in order to make a difference. We are 
working with local, State, and national antihunger organizations to 
raise awareness about hunger, build partnerships, and build solutions 
to end hunger.

  We have many challenges that face our Nation, and so many challenges 
that face this body itself. Yet this is one problem we know has an 
answer. And we know how to end hunger.
  Recently I introduced, with Senators Durbin, Smith, and Lugar, the 
Hunger-Free Communities Act of 2005. This bill calls for a renewed 
national commitment to ending hunger in the United States by 2015, 
reaffirms our congressional commitment to protecting the funding and 
integrity of Federal food and nutrition programs, and it creates a 
national grant program to support community-based antihunger efforts. I 
urge all of our colleagues to support this worthy and commonsense 
legislation. It sets a goal for a monumental concern and problem that 
we have in this Nation. It presents the answer, and it sets the time in 
which we want to reach that goal.
  Mr. President, I want to take this opportunity to talk about the 36 
million Americans, including 13 million children, who live on the verge 
of hunger.

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  Some people may ask--what can I do to help end hunger in America? I 
want to talk about some of the ways Americans can help join the hunger-
relief effort. Acting on this call to feed the hungry requires the 
effort of every American and every sector of the economy.
  The backbone of this effort is the willingness of Congress and the 
American people to support the Federal food and nutrition programs. 
These programs provide an essential safety net to working Americans, 
preventing the most vulnerable among us from suffering, and even dying, 
from malnutrition. Our continued investment in these programs is vital 
to the health of this nation.
  The most significant of these programs, the Food Stamp Program, 
provides nutritious food to over 23 million Americans a year. More 
Americans find themselves in need of this program every year. Despite 
this growing need, the Administration proposes to cut the Food Stamp 
Program by $500 million over the next 5 years by cutting more than 
300,000 low-income people off the program in an average month.
  I understand our current budget constraints. However, even in these 
tight fiscal times, I believe that we must maintain our commitment to 
feed the hungry.
  Therefore, we must first protect programs like the Food Stamp 
Program, the National School Breakfast and Lunch Program, Summer 
Feeding Program, WIC, and the Child and Adult Care Food Program. I urge 
Americans to contact their congressional representatives to voice their 
support for these programs. I urge my colleagues to support these 
programs and protect them from cuts and structural changes that will 
undermine their ability to serve our Nation's most vulnerable citizens.
  In addition to the Federal food programs, eliminating hunger in 
America requires the help of community organizations. Government 
programs provide a basis of support, but they cannot do the work alone. 
Community and faith-based organizations are essential to locating and 
rooting out hunger wherever it persists. We rely on the work of local 
food banks, food pantries, soup kitchens, and community action centers 
across America to go where government cannot. I will do all I can to 
provide the resources these community organizations need to continue 
with the difficult but necessary work they perform.
  Private corporations and small businesses also have a role to play in 
eliminating hunger in America. Our corporations and small businesses 
generate most of our Nation's wealth and have throughout history 
supported many of our greatest endeavors. Many corporations and 
businesses already contribute to efforts to eliminate hunger, and I 
hope others will begin to participate as opportunities to do so present 
themselves in the future.
  A great example of how businesses and non-profits can partner to feed 
hungry people occurred this past Friday in Little Rock. Arkansas-based 
Tyson Foods and Riceland Foods, along with Jonesboro's Kraft Foods Post 
Division and Nestle's Prepared Foods Facility, donated truck loads of 
food as a special donation in honor of National Hunger Awareness Day. 
This food will go to the Arkansas Rice Depot, Potluck, Inc. and the 
Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance, which represents six food banks 
located across Arkansas. These organizations will in turn use the food 
to help feed hungry Arkansans. I am grateful to these companies and 
non-profit organizations for their leadership in this effort to feed 
the over 450,000 Arkansans who have limited access to food.
  Ending hunger in America requires the commitment of individual 
Americans. Our greatest national strength is the power that comes from 
individual initiatives and the collective will of the American people. 
I believe we are called by a higher power to care for our fellow men 
and women, and as a part of my Christian faith I know we are called to 
serve the poor and the hungry. I know it is a common denominator among 
almost all of our faiths that it is those, the poor and the hungry, the 
orphaned and the widowed, whom we are here, as our fellow man, to take 
care of, to help to lift them up.
  If we believe in this call, we must live it every day--in our schools 
and in our homes, in our workplaces, our places of worship, in our 
volunteering, and, yes, in our prayers. This personal responsibility is 
a great one, but it holds tremendous power. It is a common denominator 
that can bring us together, the one problem that we all agree on and to 
which we know there is a solution. For as we have seen throughout 
American history, when individuals in this Nation bind together to 
serve a common cause, they can achieve the greatest of accomplishments. 
By sharing the many blessings and resources our Nation provides, I am 
confident that we can alleviate hunger at home and abroad.
  I thank the Chair. I yield the floor.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, today is National Hunger Awareness Day, 
and it is an opportunity for all of us in Congress to pledge a greater 
effort to deal effectively with this festering problem that shames our 
Nation and has grown even more serious in recent years. It is a chance 
to live out our moral commitment to care for our neighbors and fellow 
citizens who have fallen on hard times.
  The number of Americans living in hunger, or on the brink of hunger, 
now totals 36 million, 3 million more since President Bush took office. 
That total includes 13 million children, 400,000 more since 2001.
  Day in and day out, the needs of millions of Americans living in 
hunger are widely ignored, and too often their voices have been 
silenced. Their battle is a constant ongoing struggle. It undermines 
their productivity, their earning power, and their health. It keeps 
their children from concentrating and learning in school. We all need 
to do more to combat it--government, corporations, communities, and 
citizens must work together to develop better policies and faster 
responses.
  In Massachusetts, organizations such as the Greater Boston Food Bank, 
Project Bread, the Worcester County Food Bank, and many others serve on 
the frontlines every day, and they deserve our full support, but they 
should not have to wage the battle alone.
  In 1996, the Clinton administration pledged to begin an effort to cut 
hunger in half in the United States by 2010, and the strong economy 
enabled us to make significant progress toward that goal. Hunger 
decreased steadily through 2000. We now have 5 years left to fulfill 
that commitment.
  The fastest, most direct way to reduce hunger in the Nation is to 
improve and expand current Federal nutrition programs. Sadly, the 
current Administration and the Republican Congress propose to reduce, 
not increase, funds for important programs such as Food Stamps, and the 
Community Nutrition Program.
  The Food Stamp Program is designed to be available to all eligible 
individuals and households in the United States. It provides a basic 
and essential safety net to millions of people. In 2003, on average, 
over 21 million Americans received food stamp benefits. Over half of 
all food stamp recipients are children.
  Now, the administration plans to reduce, or even cut off, food stamps 
for recipients who rely on Medicare to afford the prescription drugs 
they need.
  That is why I have introduced legislation to ensure that individuals 
who receive Medicare prescription drug benefits do not lose their food 
stamps. This legislation ensures that seniors do not have to choose 
between food and medicine. I urge my colleagues to support this 
important legislation.
  It is time to do more for the most vulnerable in our society. 
National Hunger Awareness Day is our chance to pledge to eradicate 
hunger in America and to mean it when we say it.
  Mr. President, I would like to congratulate Senator Dole and Senator 
Lincoln for giving focus and attention to National Hunger Awareness Day 
and for all they do on this particular issue. I had the opportunity 
yesterday to visit The Greater Boston Food Bank in Massachusetts--a 
successful food bank. We have 517,000 people who are hungry in eastern 
Massachusetts alone, over 173,000 of those individuals are children, 
and over 50,000 are elderly.
  One thing we know how to do in this country is grow food. We can do 
that better than any other place in the world. Secondly, we know how to 
deliver packages of food with Federal Express, other kinds of delivery 
services, virtually overnight. The fact that we

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have hunger in this Nation, we have children who are hungry, frail 
elderly who are hungry, working families who are hungry, or other 
homeless people who are hungry, we as a nation are failing our 
humanity. We know what can be done. It needs the combination of a 
governmental framework, private framework, and a very important 
involvement from the nonprofit framework and other groups at the local 
level, religious groups that have done such important work.
  So I commend my friends and colleagues for bringing focus and 
attention to this issue. It has enormous implications. We find out in 
terms of education provided to the children, the needy children at 
breakfast for them early in the morning, the results in terms of their 
willingness, ability, and interest in cooperating with their teacher 
and learning go up immensely. We have information that documents all of 
that. Try to teach a hungry child to learn, and any teacher will tell 
you the complexities and difficulties and the frustrations in doing 
that.
  I thank my two friends and others who are part of this movement. I 
look forward to working with them on a matter of enormous importance 
and consequence.
  Mr DURBIN. Mr. President, I rise today to note National Hunger 
Awareness Day.
  I am meeting today with 35 people here from Illinois who came to 
Washington to remind us that hunger is not a Democratic or Republican 
issue.
  Basic sustenance ought to be a guarantee in a civilized society, not 
a gamble.
  If children--or adults--are hungry in America, that's a problem for 
all of us. And it is a problem we can do something about.
  For instance, we know that Federal nutrition programs work. WIC, food 
stamps, school lnch and breakfast programs, and other Federal nutrition 
programs are reaching record numbers of Americans today, and making 
lives better.
  The problem is we are not reaching enough people. There are still too 
many parents in this country who skip meals because there is not enough 
money in the family food budget for them and their children to eat 
every night.
  There are still too many babies and toddlers in America who are not 
getting the nutrition their minds and bodies need to develop to their 
fullest potential. There are still too many seniors and children who go 
to bed hungry.
  There are 36 million Americans who are hungry or at risk of hunger. 
In the richest Nation in the history of the world, that is 
unacceptable.
  Last week, I joined with several of my Senate colleagues to introduce 
the Hunger-Free Communities Act.
  The bill is designed to promote local collaboration in the fight 
against hunger. But it also reminds us that we as a country are 
committed to ending hunger. We know how. We need to muster the 
political will.
  We started this week by challenging our own offices to participate in 
a Senate food drive. I commend Senators Lincoln, Smith, and Dole for 
their help in collecting food that will be donated to the Capitol Area 
Community Food Bank.
  I look forward to working with people in the anti-hunger community 
and with my colleagues to eliminate domestic hunger in our lifetime.
  Mr. SALAZAR. Mr. President, I rise to commend the efforts of our 
Nation's civic, business and faith leaders to call attention to the 
increasing number of Americans who are unable to put food on their 
tables. Today, on National Hunger Awareness Day, I am proud to join 
with communities in every region of my State that are taking on the 
charge to end hunger in the United States.
  Growing up in Colorado's San Luis Valley, one of the poorest regions 
in the country, my family did not have electricity or running water in 
our home. But our family farm ensured that my brothers and sisters and 
I never went to bed hungry or arrived at school on an empty stomach. My 
classmates were not always as fortunate. Sadly, not much has changed 
since my youth.
  Currently, in Conejos County, where my family's farm is located, one 
in four residents are living in poverty. That is twice the national 
average, and three times our State poverty rate. And increasingly, the 
stories behind these numbers are of working poor households who 
struggle to pay their mortgages, escalating electricity bills and fuel 
costs. In Colorado Springs, the Care and Share Food Bank estimated that 
close to 50 percent of the households receiving their emergency food 
assistance last year had at least one working parent. More and more, 
these families need to turn to their local food bank or church pantry 
in the very same communities where food is harvested; serving as a sad 
reminder that there is much more work to be done.
  When speaking with hunger relief organizations throughout Colorado, 
they express concern when forced to turn families away, and the number 
of people they cannot help continues to grow. For example, the Marian 
House, which is operated by Catholic Charities of Colorado Springs, 
serves approximately 600 meals. Over the past several years, they have 
seen the daily number of people coming into food banks nearly double.
  Unfortunately, their stories of growing demands reflect the problems 
facing much of the rural West. In fact, according to the U.S. 
Department of Agriculture, 16 percent of households in this region did 
not know where their next meal would come from--that is the highest 
rate of so-called ``food insecurity'' in any region of the country.
  In the face of these staggering statistics, Coloradans are doing 
their part to eliminate hunger. Whether it is organizing a food drive 
in their school or office, volunteering at a soup kitchen, or donating 
to their local food bank, they are answering the call to reduce the 
number of hungry Americans. In Denver, where poverty is also on the 
rise, groups like the Food Bank of the Rockies have stepped up their 
food distribution. In 2004, hard-working, committed workers and 
volunteers distributed over 16 million pounds of food and essential 
household items, more than ever before.
  However, today is a special day, where national, regional and local 
organizations collectively are raising awareness of hunger in America. 
I am particularly proud that National Hunger Awareness Day events have 
been organized in communities throughout Colorado, including Colorado 
Springs, Denver, Fort Collins, Grand Junction, Greeley, and Hot Sulphur 
Springs. I applaud Coloradans involved in these activities, and all 
those participating in the day's related events. I look forward to 
working with the Senate Hunger Caucus and the Senate Agriculture 
Committee in the movement to end hunger.
  Mr. SMITH. Mr. President, I rise today to speak about a problem 
impacting communities across the United States and throughout the 
world. As many of my colleagues know, today is National Hunger 
Awareness Day. It is a day meant to focus our attention on those for 
whom putting food on the table continues to be a daily struggle.
  For the last several years, my home State of Oregon has been at or 
near the top of repeated nationwide studies of hunger and food 
insecurity in the United States. While we have made some progress in 
fighting hunger in Oregon, there is still a long way to go to ensuring 
that children and families in my State and around the country do not go 
to bed hungry. According the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Economic 
Research Service, in 2003, approximately 36.3 million Americans lived 
in households that at some point during the year did not have access to 
enough food to meet their basic needs. Of those 36.3 million, 3.9 
million were considered hungry.
  In 2003, Oregon State University published a study on food insecurity 
and hunger in Oregon. The study found that pressures related to the 
high-cost of housing, health care, and the high-level of unemployment 
all contribute to food insecurity and hunger in our State. One of the 
more striking findings in the report is that underemployment is also a 
major factor leading to hunger and food insecurity; working families 
throughout Oregon are having a difficult time accessing food.
  On the horizon, Oregon's economy appears to be brightening. While 
there are no quick fixes, I believe that solving hunger is within our 
grasp. Federal nutrition programs certainly serve an important safety 
net role in combating hunger; however, they are only one

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piece of the puzzle. Community organizations, churches, business 
groups, and private citizens all have a part to play. Ultimately, 
winning the fight against hunger in Oregon and around the country 
requires that families are able to provide for themselves--that means 
having access to living wage jobs.
  Many of my colleagues will remember that last year I asked them to 
join me in forming a Senate caucus devoted to raising awareness of the 
root causes of hunger and food insecurity. I appreciate very much the 
work of my Senate Hunger Caucus cochairs Senator Lincoln, Senator Dole, 
and Senator Durbin--in helping to get the caucus off the ground. I am 
proud to say that today, the Senate Hunger Caucus counts 34 members, 
with both Republicans and Democrats.
  This is clearly not a battle that will be won overnight, but it is 
something about which our conscience calls us to act. If we are to end 
hunger, we must work to address its root causes. Being successful in 
this mission will require that we are innovative and find new ways of 
doing things. I look forward to continuing to work with my colleagues 
in Congress and groups in Oregon to win this fight.