Contact your senators today and ask them to protect the programs supporting low-income Americans in the debates over next year’s budget and reducing the national debt.

9to5, National Association of Working Women, in collaboration with FRESC for Good Jobs and Strong Communities, Colorado Progressive Coalition, and NAACP of Colorado Springs, is working hard to educate Coloradoans about the benefits of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, or ARRA.The groups worked together to organize multiple community forums on ARRA’s benefits, which also covered how to access specific educational and work programs and provided participants opportunities to take action for policy reform.

Half in Ten partner the Virginia Interfaith Center details how to participate in the “poverty diet,” a three-day, experiential learning program. Participants can spend no more than $4.23 per person per day (or $12.69 over the 3 day period) on food and beverage items.

As the budget battle over funding for the rest of this fiscal year rages on, House Republicans are already gearing up for the release of their budget proposal for fiscal year 2012. Not only will this proposal likely continue the troubling pattern of deep cuts to programs supporting vulnerable families and children but it will also likely propose to restructure some of these programs—a move that would negatively impact families, communities, states, and the overall economy.

This toolkit from the Leadership Conference Education Fund will provide you with the basic structure and strategies needed to plan and carry out an effective grassroots public education or advocacy campaign. It includes what you need to do to establish your goals, create a strategy, make a step-by-step plan, and mobilize the people, partners, and resources to make it all achievable.

One in seven Americans is living in poverty and one in three Americans is scraping by on low incomes. Services such as childcare, affordable housing, food assistance, and job training are more critical than ever to help families meet basic needs and strive for a better future.

Thank you working with Half in Ten to advocate for strong policies benefiting low- to moderate-income families. We urge you to deepen your commitment to improving the lives of struggling families by endorsing a goal to cut poverty in half in ten years.

President Barack Obama has proposed a tax package to extend the middle-class tax cuts for families earning less than $250,000. The package includes a 13-month extension of federal unemployment insurance programs and extensions of the improvements to refundable tax credits that benefit low- to moderate-income working families.

A Minnesota Without Poverty, or AMWOP, a Half in Ten partner, held an event in February 2010 to report on progress toward ending poverty in Minnesota by 2020. The organization used the gathering to build community and issue a call to action. This program template includes details on the planning process for this event, reaching out to press and local partners, and next steps. The template includes an appendix with the event format, the news release, an invitation letter, and a flyer for the event.

The federal unemployment insurance program is set to expire on November 30, 2010. If this happens 2 million jobless workers will lose their benefits during the holiday season alone, putting families and children at risk while hurting economic recovery.