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CROP Hunger Walks Address Hunger, Poverty

CROP Hunger Walks are about friends and neighbors walking together to take a stand against hunger in our world, says Kathy Knudtson (center) as she prepared to walk with sisters Mira Bakken and Lorene Amenhauser in the Madsion, WI, CROP Walk. Photo: Rene Puzach

September 6, 2006

NEW YORK / ELKHART, IN - Humanitarian agency Church World Service (CWS) today announced the start of its fall 2006 season of CROP Hunger Walks, community fund-raising events that bring together people of all faiths to raise money for international relief and development, as well as local hunger-fighting. CROP is an acronym for Communities Responding to Overcome Poverty.

CROP events were begun almost 60 years ago, with the collection and shipping of grain contributed by Midwest farmers--central to Church World Service's work in helping to feed starving people in devastated post-World War II Europe and Asia. Today CROP Hunger Walks are the only events that raise awareness and funds to address both international and local needs.

In 2005, some 2,000 communities across the country participated in CROP Walks. Over the past 20 years, CROP Hunger Walkers have raised more than $270 million.

Up to twenty-five percent of what each CROP Hunger Walk raises helps stock food pantries that provide emergency assistance to families in need in that local area. The balance is used to help the relief, development, and refugee assistance agency in its efforts to eradicate hunger and poverty around the world.

The interfaith effort attracts thousands of volunteers from local churches, synagogues, and mosques who walk--or are pushed in wheelchairs or baby carriages--to raise awareness and funds to help end hunger locally and globally.

Some people have walked in their community's CROP Walk every year for decades, and new people from different faith communities join the Walks each year. In last year's round of Walks, a 12-year-old in Iowa raised 25 percent of all donations received by his local CROP Walk, and in Connecticut, a walker celebrated a 50th birthday by having family and friends donate to the local CROP Walk.

Church World Service responds around the world when disaster strikes, but a key focus of CROP Hunger Walks is simple: ending painful, persistent hunger and poverty.

According to the 2004 United States Department of Agriculture Report "Household Food Security in the United States," 38.2 million Americans live in households that suffer directly from hunger and food insecurity, including nearly 14 million children. And, worldwide more than 850 million people are chronically hungry.

CROP Hunger Walks call us to remember both neighbors a few blocks away and neighbors around the world--from the Indian Ocean tsunami to Pakistan earthquake--in our giving.

Church World Service also provides relief when disasters strike in the United States. The agency is a first-responder in domestic disasters, such as last year's Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. CWS currently is working with Habitat for Humanity to rebuild homes in the Gulf Coast and also has helped to start camps for children and youth-at-risk and organized "care for the caregivers" workshops for clergy and other response personnel in the storm-damaged areas.

In Indonesia, CWS is helping residents of Aceh province rebuild their homes and livelihoods after the tsunami. In Pakistan, CWS is assisting survivors of last October's earthquake with rebuilding-skills training, health clinics, and psycho-social supports for children and families who still have no place to call home. CWS Vietnam has brought fresh-water wells and sanitation systems to schools and villages in the mountains. And in the vast Chaco region of South America, CWS is working with indigenous populations who have been forced from their ancestral lands.

CROP Walkers will be taking to the streets in towns and villages and cities throughout the country over the next few months to help stop hunger at home and abroad.

Local CROP Hunger Walks can be found by visiting www.cropwalk.org or by calling 888-CWS-CROP.

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

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