Come walk on Saturday!

CROP Hunger Walks are community-wide events sponsored by Church World Service and organized by local congregations or groups to raise funds to end hunger at home and around the world. Our CROP Walk for West Fort Bend County will be held on Saturday, April 29th at George Ranch. Registration opens at 07;30. The walk begins at 08:00.

Background
With its inception in 1969, CROP Hunger Walks are “viewed by many as the granddaddy of charity walks,” notes the Los Angeles Times (Oct. 26, 2009). On October 17, 1969, a thousand people in Bismarck, ND, walked in what may have been the start of the hunger walks related to CROP – and raised $25,000 to help stop hunger. As far as we know, York County, Penn., was the first walk officially called the CROP Walk for the Hungry – and that event has been continuous since 1970. For West Fort Bend County we started the CROP in 1972. Currently, well over 2,000 communities across the U.S. join in more than 1,000 CROP Hunger Walks each year. More than five million CROP Hunger Walkers have participated in more than 36,000 CROP Hunger Walks in the last two decades alone. Last year, St. John’s United Church of Christ contributed 37 out of 118 walkers and $2801 out of $12038 total.

What does CROP stand for?
When CROP began in 1947 (under the wing of Church World Service, which was founded in 1946), CROP was an acronym for the Christian Rural Overseas Program. Its primary mission was to help Midwest farm families to share their grain with hungry neighbors in post-World War II Europe and Asia. Today, we’ve outgrown the acronym but we retain it as the historic name of the program.

Where do CROP Hunger Walk funds go?
CROP Hunger Walks help to support the overall work of Church World Service, particularly grassroots development efforts around the world. In addition, 25 percent of the funds raised remain in Fort Bend County and go directly to Helping Hands, our local food-bank in Richmond. CROP Hunger Walks help to provide food and water, as well as resources that empower people to meet their own needs. From seeds and tools to wells and water systems, the key is people working together to identify their own development priorities, their strengths and their needs – something CWS has learned through 70 years of working in partnership around the world.