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CROP WALKS Help End Hunger Locally and Globally

October 6, 2005

Church World Service Executive Director John McCullough has seen the many faces of hunger, and he says, "I have also seen the remarkable ways impoverished people, with a little help, can become self-sustaining."

This fall, tens of thousands of people in communities across the United States will be doing something Americans usually do for recreation or exercise: They’ll be walking miles and miles through the streets of their communities to raise money to fund the domestic and international poverty and hunger relief efforts of Church World Service, the relief, development, and refugee assistance ministry of 35 Protestant, Orthodox, and Anglican denominations in the United States.

The event, which takes place on different Saturdays and Sundays in various parts of the country throughout the year, is called CROP WALK. The walk itself is also symbolic. It is a way of showing solidarity with people in developing countries around the world. In addition, local groups receive some of the funds raised to support hunger-related agencies and groups in their own communities.

More than $150 million has been raised by CROP WALKS in the past 10 years.

The reach of the millions of dollars raised through CROP WALKS is global. Church World Service uses some of the donations to fund its poverty- and hunger-fighting activities in some 80 countries.

In Kenya, East Africa, CROP WALK dollars are helping to dig wells in villages where walking is a matter of day-to-day survival. The wells provide a reliable, local source of clean water so that women and children don't have to spend a large part of their days getting water for drinking, cooking, washing, and agriculture. Less time spent walking may mean more time in a classroom.

Closer to home, CROP WALKS help feed local families who might otherwise go hungry by helping to fund local hunger-fighting initiatives such as food pantries and soup kitchens in towns and cities across the nation.

According to a 2003 report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 11.2 percent of U.S. households at some time during the year did not have access to "enough food for an active, healthy life for all household members."

Some of those people are able to get help from local soup kitchens or food pantries like the one run by the Abyssinian Baptist Church in New York City, which shared in the receipts from the 2004 CROP WALK in New York City.

Abyssinian opens its pantry two days a week. Chief Financial Officer Ernestine Wallace Adams says people who show up needing food "get pretty big bags of groceries." Wallace says the church spends $50,000 a year, apart from any contributions, to keep the pantry open and stocked.

McCullough says, "hunger will not have the last word" as long as the faith community continues to live out its beliefs about justice and abundance for all through activities like the CROP WALK.

Local people who organize and participate in Church World Service CROP WALKS range from young children to senior citizens.

In Oak Park, Illinois, a class of fourth graders at Longfellow School last year raised $4,000 to fight hunger by getting people to sponsor them in suburban Chicago's Hunger Walkathon West.

"There are children in Oak Park in need, and children need to know they have power, that they can change the world," says teacher Sandra Flowers, a 13-year veteran of the walks. Flowers says the grade-schoolers, having gotten a taste of what it is like to be able to give something back to the community, now look forward to their annual CROP WALK.

On the other end of the age spectrum is Vern Trudo of Amherst, New Hampshire. He celebrated his 80th birthday by doing the same thing he's done on his birthday for the past 13 years: walking in the Souhegan Valley Interfaith CROP WALK. Trudo has raised $7,200 so far this year.

"Ending world hunger," he says, "is definitely a possibility that is within one's power. It's shameful we don't do more than we do."

There are many reasons that people end up not having enough food to keep from going to bed hungry. Poverty, failed crops, loss of jobs, and natural or human-caused disasters are just a few of them.

Disaster Victims are also helped by CWS. Thousands of people displaced by genocide in Darfur, Sudan, and now living in camps in Sudan and Chad are being assisted with food, medicine, and supplies provided by Church World Service.

When an earthquake and tsunami devastated parts of Indonesia and other countries in the region, Church World Service was able to immediately provide more than $3.5 million for temporary shelter, food and health support, while planning for the transition to long-term recovery for some 50,000 displaced people.

A CROP WALK is not just a fundraising activity. It is as much a way of building community among people of different cultures and faiths as it is an opportunity for participants to help solve big problems with their small, individual efforts.

In Rochester, Minnesota, CROP WALK organizers last year changed their walk from a Saturday to a Sunday so that people from the local Jewish faith community could participate without violating their Sabbath. Coordinator Joan Leof says, the B'nai Israel congregation "was the top fundraising congregation that year."

The Rochester CROP WALK now includes people from the city's Christian, Jewish, and Muslim communities walking together and upholding the CROP WALK tradition of people of all ages, cultures, races, and faiths walking and working together to fight hunger and poverty.

For more information about CROP WALK or to locate a CROP WALK in your area, visit www.cropwalk.org.

Media Contact:
Lesley Crosson, CWS/New York, 212-870-2676;
Jan Dragin, 781-925-1526;

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