Pandemic relief: Poverty, hunger lurk far and wide

Finally, Congress appears ready to act to provide COVID-19 relief. Raise your voice now!

Our neighbors here need rental assistance, increases to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (to help prevent hunger) and a new eviction moratorium.

Our neighbors around the globe desperately need aid as well. Worldwide, we will see extreme hunger double and an increase in extreme poverty of 150 million people.

Already, vaccine programs for tuberculosis, malaria, AIDS and childhood diseases are being disrupted as funds are diverted to fight COVID. A secondary pandemic of poverty, hunger and sickness is ready to rage, but we can help slow it down.

Please call your senators and representatives to pass relief before they leave DC for holiday break. Especially request a relief bill that will include at least $20 billion in international development assistance.

As this virus has reminded us, what happens on one side of the globe will ultimately affect what happens here, on the other side.

This story was originally published December 17, 2020 at 11:37 AM with the headline "Pandemic relief: Poverty, hunger lurk far and wide."