Boulder CROP Hunger Walk enters the record books
Wednesday, June 4, 2008

When hunger fighting advocates in Boulder, Colo. stepped off for the community's annual CROP Hunger Walk last October, they had no idea they were walking into the record books.

NEW YORK -- When hunger fighting advocates in Boulder, Colo. stepped off for the community's annual CROP Hunger Walk last October, they had no idea they were walking into the record books.

But by the time the 300 or so walkers completed the 6.2 mile trek from Community United Church of Christ through the neighborhoods and foothills of Boulder, they had passed a significant milestone.

For the first time in the 22 years of the Boulder CROP Hunger Walk, (http://www.bouldercropwalk.org/) sponsored by humanitarian agency Church World Service to raise money for its local and international hunger and poverty fighting efforts, contributions passed the $50,000 mark. It was a first not just for Boulder but for the entire Rocky Mountain region, which annually hosts 40 Walks in Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming.

"That's been our goal for several years," says walk co-coordinator Suzanne Dysard. "I always say CROP Walk day is my favorite day of the year and this one really was."

Working with the faith community, businesses and local residents to organize the annual event, is more than just part-time volunteer work for the 38-year-old business consultant.

"I treat it like a job," she says. "I really love the work and people always ask me if I get paid to do it." She doesn't.

Art Ziemann, Rocky Mountain regional director for CWS, believes it is impossible to put a price on volunteers like Dysard. "The best part is that she doesn't do this to set records - she does it because she genuinely cares about people, especially those who go to bed hungry at night. And the difference she makes in their lives is priceless."

As a coordinator Dysard works closely with the churches and synagogues that organize the walks. "A unique feature of the Boulder Walk is that we walk a different route every year. We start and end at the church or synagogue that is organizing the walk and the route we walk is planned by that faith community."

Dysard, who lives in Boulder with her husband James, has found a way to incorporate CROP fundraising into several aspects of her life.

In 2004 she became the nation's top online CROP Walker when she went online and asked people to sponsor her walk by sending donations via the web.

Recently married, she invited friends and family to donate to CROP instead of buying wedding gifts. She also wears a CROP T-shirt and carries a CROP sign with her when she travels.

Those travels have taken the North Carolina native to Vietnam in 2004, where Church World Service has worked for several decades bringing safe water and sanitation to remote villages and to Kenya in 2006 to visit other CWS projects. The trips were instructive for someone who has spent a large part of her life raising money for CROP. She first walked in Boone, N.C. as a college student, then in Charlotte, and, Dysard says, she "really got involved" once she moved to Boulder.

"I got a chance to see the money we raise through CROP Walks in action. That made a very big impact on me."

Church World Service, which receives up to 75 percent of the proceeds from CROP Hunger Walks in some 2,000 communities across the country, uses the money to support a broad range of poverty and hunger-fighting projects in developing nations worldwide.

Rising food prices and a failing economy are on Dysard's mind as she recruits volunteers and walkers for the upcoming Boulder Walk (http://www.bouldercropwalk.org/) on October 26, which will again donate 24 percent of the money raised to Community Food Share, a Boulder clearinghouse for local food pantries, and one percent to the local Bread for the World hunger-fighting advocacy organization.

"It will be interesting to see how the poor economy will affect donations because food banks are really concerned about how many hungry people they are going to have to feed this year."

Of course, goal setter that she is, Dysard is hoping to exceed the take from last year's milestone-setting walk. She laments that "the weather was gray and rainy" for the 2007 walk-although the chill didn't slow the walkers' march into the CROP Hunger Walk record books.

Sunshine would be ideal but even if this year's walk day weather is bleak, the bottom line remains the same for Dysard: "It's a great way to make a difference in the world."

Media Contact:
Lesley Crosson, 212-870-2676, lcrosson@churchworldservice.org
Jan Dragin, 781-925-1526, jdragin@gis.net

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