LAMA Roundtable Minute from Sharon Odden
At our last Roundtable meeting Solvieg shared the priorities set by the Policy Council. I will be sharing more about each priority in later issues. These are the 2025 priorities:
- Food Insecurity as it relates to hunger and its root causes. Please check out our ELCA social teachings on hunger and poverty. LAMA will continue to partner with Grand Canyon Synod’s Hunger Leaders Network and the annual 40-40-40 Lenten Challenge, and collaborate with our coalition partners at Arizona Faith Network, Bread for the World, Arizona Food Bank Network and others to alleviate food insecurity in Arizona and elsewhere.
- Civic Engagement as we are called to encourage faithful and nonpartisan voter participation, and understand and speak out about the intersection of voting and elections and racial, gender and economic justice. LAMA seeks to educate, inform and promote healthy dialogue on Christian engagement.
As part of civic engagement, LAMA will work to support public schools, acknowledging the many ways that students and families who are underserved benefit through not only an education, but also from food programs such as Healthy School Meals and Sun Bucks, shelter through both heat and air conditioning, and the safety that public schools provide. ELCA Social Statement Our Calling in Education informs this work.
- Immigration. Together with our partners at Lutheran Social Services of the Southwest (LSS-SW), LAMA seeks to compassionately support the dignity of individuals coming into the U.S by working to protect legal pathways to immigration and protecting the civil rights of all in our multicultural society. Exodus 23:9 reads, “Do not oppress a foreigner; you yourselves know how it feels to be foreigners, because you were foreigners in Egypt.” LAMA seeks to alleviate misperceptions, separating fact from myth, and will endeavor to educate our network on immigration policy, clarifying what’s at stake.
Housing and Homelessness. We are pleased to be in collaboration with Lutheran Social Services of the Southwest (LSS-SW), who has committed again in 2025 to advocating in the areas of affordable housing and homelessness, using the ELCA’s social message, Homeless: A Renewal of Commitment, and its new resource, Housing: A Practical Guide for Learning, Advocating and Building as references.
