Chief of Program Peggy Nienaber represented Faith & Action at a recent all-day White House conference on Faith Based and Neighborhood partnerships. The invitation-only meeting was held in the elaborate Eisenhower Executive Office Building immediately next to the White House. The facility is accessible only through the White House gates.

Peggy participated in the discussion surrounding recommendations presented to the President by a special advisory council. The group was appointed to explore ways the White House can continue to work with faith-based organizations on efforts like Mr. Obama’s Responsible Fatherhood Initiative. Last year, on the 100th anniversary of Fathers’ Day, the President wrote in an article for Parade Magazine,

In many ways, I came to understand the importance of fatherhood through its absence — both in my life and in the lives of others. I came to understand that the hole a man leaves when he abandons his responsibility to his children is one that no government can fill. We can do everything possible to provide good jobs and good schools and safe streets for our kids, but it will never be enough to fully make up the difference.

That is why we need fathers to step up, to realize that their job does not end at conception; that what makes you a man is not the ability to have a child but the courage to raise one.

Faith & Action is working to reinforce the President’s admonition, particularly on his point that the job of fathers, “does not end at conception.”

Peggy Nienaber also used the conference as an opportunity to present the President’s point man for the Responsible Fatherhood program, Rev. Joshua DuBois, with a signed copy of a book by long-time Faith & Action supporter Pastor Kenneth Barney of the renowned New Antioch Baptist Church of Randallstown, Maryland.