CROP Walk takes place Oct. 21
By Ashley M. Casey
Staff Writer
In 1969, Church World Service founded the “granddaddy of all charity walks,” the CROP Hunger Walk. While the event’s acronym has shed its original meaning (“Christian Rural Overseas Program”), the giving spirit of the event remains.
Today, there are 900 CROP Walks in the United States. One of them is the Greater Syracuse CROP Hunger Walk, which takes place Oct. 21 at Willow Bay in Onondaga Lake Park.
Pastor Paul Herpich, who retired this year from King of Kings Lutheran Church in Liverpool, is co-chair of the Syracuse walk, along with Amy Bobbette, district manager of the American Red Cross. Herpich said he has taken part in CROP Walks since his days as a student in Cobleskill during the 1970s. He joined the effort in Syracuse in 1980.
Over Herpich’s 32-year tenure with King of Kings, he helped his congregation raise $130,000. “Given that there’s a walk every weekend in Syracuse,” Herpich said, the volume of CROP Walk participants and donations is impressive.
“As I was moving towards retirement, I said I could put more time into it and that’s why I’m helping co-chair it now,” Herpich said.
Knowing that 25 percent of the proceeds remain in the community appealed to Herpich, he said. Among the local organizations to benefit from the walk are North Area Meals on Wheels, the Baldwinsville Community Food Pantry and the Interreligious Food Consortium in Syracuse.
The collaborative nature of Church World Service is a plus in Herpich’s book, too.
“They work with other major relief organizations like Catholic Charities,” he said. “They’re not doing their own thing — they’re working together.”
That theme of working together is mirrored in the Syracuse walk, which was consolidated from several smaller area CROP Walks. Across the nation, 107,000 people took part in CROP Hunger Walks in 2017, raising $9 million.
CWS’s mission has expanded far beyond its original scope. The organization started after World War II to distribute surplus grain to people in Europe and Asia who had been affected by the war.
“It’s really amazing the way they got started,” Herpich said.
In addition to raising money to fight hunger, CWS puts together relief packages for victims of natural disasters, assists refugees and immigrants, and distributes kits of school supplies, personal hygiene essentials and baby care items.
Bob Graves has seen the power of CROP Walks from both sides. Not only has he been a participant since the early ‘80s, but he is also president of the North Area Meals on Wheels board of directors, one of the local organizations that benefits from the proceeds. NAMOW’s nearly 300 clients, most of them seniors, consume more than 115,000 meals each year.
For organizations that fight hunger, the CROP Walk is not just about the money, Graves said.
“Part of the purpose is to heighten the awareness that hunger exists,” he said. “Fundraising goes a long way, but there’s hunger all over the world.”
While the bulk of the fundraising took place over the summer, Graves said people can sign up for the 3-mile walk on the day of the event, or they can donate online. (See sidebar for more information.)
“You haven’t got to get off your couch. There’s many ways to support it,” Graves said.
