Photo: CWS Great Plains

A Half-Century of Service to CWS

Fifty years of counting CROP Hunger Walk money is enough, says Newton, Kansas, treasurer Lee Rodgers. Rodgers (pictured below in light-colored suit) retired after last October’s Walk, ending a journey that began in 1956.

“I started as a banker in 1938,” Rodgers says. “When I returned from military service in 1956, my boss at the bank handed the CROP treasurer’s job over to me.” In recent years Rodgers served as a local treasurer; in years past he was responsible for all of Harvey County. In those early days, farmers took wheat to the grain elevator and donated the profits. Rodgers collected the proceeds and sent them to Church World Service to help feed the hungry in Europe and Asia.

Rodgers, a life-long member of the Newton Church of the Brethren, says, “The churches ran the Walk. All I did was handle the money. It was worthwhile, a labor of love.”