Annual CROP Hunger Walks Bring Participants Out To Raise Money For Local, International Causes

New York, NY (AHN) - People joined together in local communities this weekend to walk up to 10 miles to combat hunger in the United States and around the world.

Twenty-five percent of what participants raise in local hunger walks for Communities Responding to Overcome Poverty (CROP), stays in the local community and the rest goes to international relief and agencies that feed the hungry elsewhere in the world.

"It's for a good cause--hunger relief. If you raise $150 it buys 100 chickens for a farm. So it provides them with a good food supply and income," Zack Devoll, a young walker in Zanesville, Ohio, told WHIZ News.

Participants this weekend took part in some of the 2,000 CROP hunger walks expected to take place this year. CROP is sponsored by Church World Services and has been in existence for 61 years.

Twenty-six groups represented by 317 walkers took part in Sunday's Muskingum-Zanesville walk, it was the 33rd local CROP Hunger Walk there and participants raised $14,792.30. Money staying in the community will be divided between the Salvation Army and Christ's Table.

Sunday's walk in Dolgeville, New York benefited the local Dolgeville Area Food Pantry.

"With the tough winter months ahead of us, and the already high cost of fuel and home heating oil, now more than ever people need help," Caryl Hopson, a CROP Walk committee member, told the Evening Times.

That sentiment was echoed by CROP Walk Organizer Allison Germolus/CROP Walk Organizer in the Bismarck-Mandan, North Dakota community, where 150 walkers participated in the 39th CROP walk there.

"We don't want people on the streets and we want people to have food on themselves and we don't want children to go hungry in our community, either so I think it's a great time for people to become aware of the growing problems we have especially in the economic situation we're all in and some of us are hit a lot harder than others," Germolus told KXMBTV news.

Walks also took place in many other states across the country this weekend.