Walk feeds the hungry at home and worldwide

[SEPT. 27, 2006]  Walkers representing many Logan County churches, businesses and other organizations will gather at Scully Park on Oct. 8 to raise money to feed hungry people locally and worldwide.

The Logan County CROP Walk is sponsored by Church World Service. One-fourth of the money raised will go to the Central Illinois Economic Development Corp. to help citizens of Logan County. The remainder will be used to support the overall ministry of CWS in fighting hunger, supplying seeds and tools, digging wells, and teaching nutrition and agriculture in more than 80 countries. CWS is a cooperative ministry of 36 Protestant, Orthodox and Anglican denominations.

The 2006 CROP Walk commemorates the farm families who began the local effort. By 1947 many local farmers signed over a percentage of their corn and soybeans to help feed people left hungry by World War II. The produce was sent in a special train car. In 1947 Church World Service began its CROP program. At that time CROP stood for Christian Relief Overseas Program.

Although CWS originated in 1946 and CROP in 1947, the first walk did not occur until Oct. 17, 1969, when a thousand participants in Bismarck, N.D., raised $25,000 to stop hunger. The first walk in Lincoln took place just one year later.

This year's walk on Oct. 8 begins at 1:30 p.m. at Scully Park. From there it will proceed to Fifth Street, then to College Avenue and north to Woodlawn Road, then to Elm Street and south to Eighth Street, then to Broadway, Kickapoo and back to Scully Park. Refreshments will be offered at the end of the walk.

Walkers will solicit pledges of support from community members. Pledge envelopes are available from Tonita Reifsteck, chair of the Logan County CROP Walk committee, at 732-9796. Committee members are Rosemary Apel, Nancy Gehlbach and Ken Schwab.

In 2005 over $5,000 was distributed locally. This year, Reifsteck said, the need is even greater because many workers do not earn enough to cover food as well as gas, rent and household items.

A unique aspect of CROP walks is that individual donors have the option of designating their gifts to other approved agencies. It is expected that the approximately 2,000 CROP walks planned for this fall will raise nearly $16 million, of which almost $4 million will help hungry people within the United States.

[News release]