COEUR d’ALENE.   Local citizens joined others across the nation to deliver pies to congressional offices, talk about the department of eace legislation and let their leaders know that “Peace Wants a Piece of the Pie.”

In Coeur d’Alene, women visited the offices of U.S. Sens. Larry Craig and Mike Crapo and Rep. Bill Sali. They delivered fresh-baked pies from astry and More and a pie chart of the proposed federal discretionary budget for fiscal year 2008. The pie chart shows just 1 percent for peace.

Hayden Lake resident Shirley Thagard said proponents of the creation of a department of peace and nonviolence point out policy-making trends oward reactive rather than proactive approaches to violence reduction.“This legislation creates an institutional platform for the burgeoning science of peace building,” said a press release.  “It supports the United States in being as effective at addressing the sources of iolence as we are at addressing its symptoms.”

Domestically, the department of peace will develop policies and allocate resources to reduce the levels of domestic and gang violence, hild abuse, school violence and various other forms of societal discord, Thagard said.

Internationally, the department will advise the president and Congress on the most sophisticated ideas and techniques regarding peace creation among nations.

Thagard said local organizers visited with Betty Magnus, the counselor at the Soroptimist Children’s Center, an adjunct of the Women’s Center, and presented her with an apple pie for being a shining example of a component of the department of peace.“Magnus works with children impacted by domestic violence with the goal of breaking the cycle of learned behavior that is domestic violence,” she said.

June 9 is the date of the second “Champagne, Cheesecake, Cabernet and Chocolate,” which will be held to benefit the Women’s Center and the soroptimist Children’s Center. The event held at the White House, 805 E. Sherman Ave., Coeur d’Alene.

Tickets are $40 and available at the Women’s Center, 664-9303, Painter’s Chair, Gourmet Way and Windermere Real Estate Post Falls.