Moorestown will hold its annual CROP Walk on Sunday, May 7.
Residents from Moorestown and neighboring communities in early May will join forces in the fight against hunger.
The annual CROP Walk has been a Moorestown tradition for decades and will take place on Sunday, May 7. The theme is “Ending Hunger One Step at a Time.”
The CROP Walk is both a local and global initiative that raises money through per-mile pledges as well as contributions from the public support programs of Church World Service, a Christian ministry program that includes 37 denominations.
In 2016, more than 1,000 CROP Walks were held around the world with 120,000 participants that raised $10 million. More than 5 million walkers have participated in the last two decades alone.
In addition to providing hunger relief and emergency food supplies, CROP Walk funds also pay for resources, such as seeds and technical training, that enable people to meet their own needs. Global CROP Walk initiatives include providing agricultural training in Indonesia and combating droughts in Nicaragua.
When the CROP Walk was founded post-World War II in 1947, CROP was an acronym for Christian Rural Overseas Program and its mission was to help Midwest farm families share their grain with hungry neighbors in Europe and Asia. The organization has since outgrown the acronym to retain the history and keep the name.
The Moorestown CROP Walk is a five-mile scenic course, but participants who prefer a shorter course can also choose to walk one or three miles. The walk will begin and end at St. Matthew’s Lutheran Church and is meant to symbolize the reality of those who must walk miles every day to find food or clean drinking water. Last year, the walk raised approximately $12,000. To date, Moorestown has raised close to $600,000 to help end hunger.
“Some people have to do this every day of their lives regardless of rain or shine to be able to eat,” CROP Walk planning committee member John Khanlian said.
While most of the money raised will be contributed to global fights against hunger, 25 percent will go directly to food pantries in Moorestown.
Khanlian says the stigma around those who can’t afford food is often incorrect.
“It’s just people who are down on their luck or find themselves in situations where it really makes a difference to be able to feed themselves or their family and have a little help,” Khanlian said.
Moorestown is home to three food pantries, and the 25 percent will be split evenly among them.
While Khanlian says the walk previously raised more than it does now, he doesn’t think this is necessarily a bad thing.
“I don’t think there were as many channels for people to support hunger fighting programs as there are today,” Khanlian said. “In Moorestown, there are lots of programs going on. There are a lot of people involved in one way or another.”
However, Khanlian and event coordinator Mae Trebing would still love to see a great turnout this year.
“The more the merrier!” Trebing said.
The 84-year-old has been involved with the CROP Walk for as long as she can remember and has been coordinating the event for three years.
“It’s a joint effort, and together, you can accomplish great things,” Trebing said.
Interested CROP Walkers can sign up in a variety of ways. They can contact an individual church coordinator in one of the sponsoring Moorestown congregations and organizations including Trinity Episcopal, First United Methodist, First Baptist, First Presbyterian, St. Matthew’s Lutheran, Bethel A.M.E, Friends Meeting and the Moorestown Jewish Association. They can also visit www.crophungerwalk.org/moorestownnj to sign up online. Anybody can participate — belonging to a church or organization is not required.
Those inclined to help but who do not wish to walk can pledge a tax-deductible donation to a walker or visit the registration website to make a general donation.
For more information, contact Trebing at ironhorse2102@gmail.com or (609) 239–4942 or visit www.cropwalkhunger.org.
