Charity Brings Antipoverty Message to Republican Convention Delegates

August 29, 2008

Charity Brings Antipoverty Message to Republican Convention Delegates

Photograph courtesy Catholic Charities of St. Paul and Minneapolis

People attending the Republican National Convention next week in downtown St. Paul will find it hard to avoid an antipoverty message from the local Catholic Charities.

Catholic Charities of St. Paul and Minneapolis has erected a billboard along a freeway, I-94, just outside the area where delegates will be meeting, and a banner on the Dorothy Day Center, a homeless shelter across the street from the Xcel Center, the convention site.

Both read: “Our political agenda: food, shelter, dignity.”

While the timing coincides with the convention, the Rev. John Estrem, the group’s chief executive, says the issues transcend political parties. “We ask all people – regardless of politics — to get involved this fall in talking about our future,” he said in a statement.

Catholic Charities said the number of families seeking help from Dorothy Day more than doubled from 264 in 2005 to 574 in 2007. “Campaigns are the vehicles for setting public agendas,” Father Estrem said. “And our agenda is to move people out of poverty and uphold their innate dignity.”

Other nonprofit-related activities timed for the Republican gathering include:

A panel discussion on Monday in Minneapolis of U.S. foreign assistance that will include Raymond C. Offenheiser, president of Oxfam America, the international relief group, and Vin Weber, chairman of the National Endowment for Democracy, a nonprofit group that works to strengthen democratic institutions around the world. Other panelists include Rep. John Bozeman, Republican of Arizona, and Andrew S. Natsios, former head of the U.S. Agency for International Development.

A discussion of education policy on Tuesday in Minneapolis sponsored by more than a dozen groups, including AmericanSolutions for Winning the Future, a public-policy advocacy group chaired by former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich; the Education Equality Project, a new group fighting to improve education for African American and Latino students; and Ed in ’08, an education-advocacy group financed by the Eli & Edythe Broad Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Speakers will include Mr. Gingrich and the Rev. Al Sharpton, the New York civil rights activist, who co-chairs the Education Equality Project.

— Suzanne Perry

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