Mission Update
Participants at United Methodist Women’s Assembly took up their pens in support of children. They wrote personal letters to U.S. lawmakers asking expanded funding for child care.
The letters were delivered by Women’s Division officers to U.S. lawmakers in Washington, D.C., May 15.
The action followed a speech by Marian Wright Edelman, president and founder of the Children’s Defense Fund. She spoke about millions of children living in poverty in the United States, the lack of affordable child care, and the detriment to children when they lack basic early childhood education.
Assembly participants’ letters asked Congress and the Bush Administration to reauthorize and increase funding for the Child Care and Development Block Grant, the major federal child-care program. They asked for an additional $20 billion in new funds over the next five years. Such funding would mean 2 million more children could receive child-care assistance and the quality of child care could be improved.
Sixty-five percent of mothers with children under age 6 and 28 percent of mothers with children ages 6-13 are in the labor force. Close to 60 percent of mothers with infants under age one are in the labor force. Only 23 percent of all families with children younger than six have one parent working and one parent who stays home.
Ms. Edelman called United Methodist Women to action.
"The Bush Administration’s budget proposes freezing child-care funding at its current level over the next five years, which means 144,000 fewer children will receive federal child-care assistance while simultaneously requiring poor mothers to work longer hours in the Administration’s new welfare proposals," she said. "You can make a difference again for children in need of quality child care and for working poor parents trying to get and stay off welfare."
United Methodist Women has a long history of advocacy on behalf of children. Ms. Edelman reminded the group of another Assembly letter-writing campaign:
"President George H. Bush had pledged to veto pending child-care legislation. In response, United Methodist Women members came to petition him, through his senior policy advisor, to change his mind. They were prepared and persistent. And they were girded by prayer."
Two months later, President Bush signed the Child Care and Development Block Grant legislation into law.
United Methodist Women hope this year’s advocacy will contribute to reauthorization of the grant and undergirding of it with additional funds.
Return to...