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Dear traveling friend,

To add meaning to the holiday season, every Christmas I help raise funds for Bread for the World through my traveling friends and network at Rick Steves' Europe. This year, the needs and the opportunity are particularly great. And that means the rewards are too!

I’d love to send you a special Christmas package as thanks for a $100 gift to empower Bread’s work. Last year, more than a thousand friends joined my challenge. And this year I’m hoping we’ll do even better. Once again, I’m offering this gift package with every $100 gift — but this year my target is 2,500 friends contributing $100 each — so please share this challenge with your loved ones and make your donation today.

I believe hungry people need a strong and compassionate advocate like Bread for the World — especially when need in our world is so great. We are in the midst of the worst refugee crisis since World War II. In South Sudan and other parts of Africa, children and the elderly are collapsing from starvation. Here in the United States, one in five children lives in a family that struggles to get enough to eat.

But we have more reason for hope than ever before. Pope Francis has inspired millions of people of faith to answer God’s call to end hunger. And just a few weeks ago, at the U.N. General Assembly, the nations of the world committed themselves to ending extreme hunger and poverty in the next 15 years.

I see Bread for the World not as a charity, but as a service. If we care about hunger, in my estimate, there is no more effective way to put our dollars to work to fight it. Bread transforms our concern about hunger into effective action by smartly — and doggedly — going into the halls of our government and speaking up (or "lobbying") for hungry people in our country and around the world.

The need is so clear, the momentum is so good, and Bread for the World is so effective. That’s why I’m inspired to offer you this personal challenge: Help Bread for the World with your gift of $100 or more. As a thank you, I'll match all gifts (up to $250,000) and send you Rick Steves' European Christmas DVD, music CD and coffee-table book (worth $50). Imagine, as an extended family of caring (and traveling) people, together we can empower Bread for the World’s work with $500,000. 

I’ll happily pay for the cost of these three gifts, as well as the shipping, so that Bread for the World can put 100 percent of your donation to work giving a voice to hungry people. Make your gift by Dec. 10 to receive this offer — and you'll get everything (along with our latest travel newsletter) in time for Christmas.

It's my hope that these gifts will add a wonderful new twist to your family celebrations for years to come (as they have for mine), while also enticing you to empower Bread for the World with your donation.

By the way, for every dollar Bread raises, it leverages $100 in terms of assistance and funding that is vital to hungry and poor people in our country and abroad. (That’s the great thing about advocacy — our government wants to do the right thing, when properly encouraged.) Assuming that ratio holds, if we hit our $500,000 target, it will mean that, together, we’ll generate 50 million dollars of life-giving, hope-instilling funding.

To watch my video and make your donation, please follow this link.

Thanks and Merry Christmas,

Rick Steves                                      

P.S.  As an alternative thank you gift, you’re welcome to select my Complete Collection 2000-2016 DVD Box Set, a $99 value, which includes the entire library of over 100 “Rick Steves’ Europe” TV shows, specials, and extras. (And “re-gifting” this collection to any traveler is encouraged.)

Rick Steves' Europe Inc. 
130 4th Ave. N Edmonds, WA 98020 USA