Ways to Connect with the Campaign

Submitted by Joseph Duffy, Catholic Charities of Paterson, NJ

I think that an initial and ongoing task of the Campaign to Reduce Poverty has got to be to raise the awareness of people in our local communities about poverty.

One way to do that is to invite people to read and learn about the campaign, sign on to endorse it, and then pass it forward to others to do the same. I think too it is incumbent upon us in leadership at the local level to take the information CCUSA has put together on poverty in this country and then adapt it to the local situation so as we alert people to poverty they will realize it is in their own backyard. Perhaps we can use this blog to share creative ways in which to inform and invite others to learn about and endorse the campaign.

Our national staff created a one page flier with an endorsement form on the bottom that provides an overview of the Campaign and the opportunity to endorse it online or by fax. I took that flier and added comparable local figures and used it as a payroll stuffer for the almost 1000 employees of Catholic charities in Paterson. That same flier is now in stands in the back of the room wherever we go for speaking engagements, health fairs, etc, and in our waiting rooms. In one of our offices, a volunteer who saw it volunteered to sit in the waiting room with a clipboard and invite others to read and sign.

That same flier is also suitable for bulletin inserts. You could provide it  by e-mail or hard copy and invite pastors to duplicate it as a bulletin insert. Monica at CCUSA also developed great sample bulletin blurbs that could be stand alone messages in parish bulletins informing and calling people to action, or used in combination with the flier. Does anyone have some comments or some other original ideas?