The 44th annual Waynesboro-East Augusta CROP Hunger Walk will be held Sunday, Sept 29 in Waynesboro, starting at 2 p.m. at the Ridgeview Park Amphitheater.
The CROP (Communities Responding to Overcome Poverty) Hunger Walk (www.crophungerwalk.org) has a long history in the US. It has actually been going on for 50 years as of this year, although just for 44 years locally.
The project, sponsored by Church World Service (www.cws.org), a consortium of most major Christian denominations, provides hunger aid and development funds both around the world and locally: 3/4 is sent overseas while 1/4 is returned to local projects selected by the local Steering Committee for each Walk.
Hundreds of CROP Walks occur in communities around the US each year. In Waynesboro, we annually see about 200 walkers representing about 20 local congregations, who collect contributions from friends, co-workers and families in return for participating in the 3-mile Walk (the rationale is, “We walk because they walk” – i.e., hungry and poor people must spend much of each day walking to collect water, food and firewood).
Each year the Waynesboro-East Augusta CROP Walk raises about $25,000, of which more than $6000 is returned locally to help hungry people in our area. Over the history of our local Walk, we have generated over $800,000 to fight hunger and to help hungry people help themselves out of poverty.