38th Annual CROP Walk for the Hungry is Oct 21

The 38th annual Concord Area CROP Walk for the Hungry will be held Sunday, October 21, at First Parish in Concord, 20 Lexington Road, starting at 1:30 p.m. with music by Concord-Carlisle High School Pep Band. At 2:15 p.m. volunteers will join in the two and one-quarter mile route across the Old North Bridge and down Lowell Street to the Milldam.

During the pre-Walk ceremony, Concord residents Carl and Carol Miller will be presented the Frank Bradshaw Award for their twenty-five years of leadership and service. Involved with Concord CROP Walk since its founding in 1980, Carl Miller assumed leadership in 1986. With the help of a task force of volunteers from Trinitarian Congregational Church, he gathered an ecumenical Board of Directors from churches in Concord, Acton and Sudbury. Concord Area CROP Walk under Carl Miller’s leadership grew from three faith-organization sponsors with eighty walkers to thirty congregations from nine towns and 300+ walkers each year. Concord CROP Walk Board of Directors also served as a catalyst in helping early organizers to develop the Open Table weekly supper program. Since his retirement in 2015, Carl continues to walk and raise funds for the hungry. Carl also founded and led the Advocacy Network to End Family Homelessness until his retirement.

Carol Miller, a long-time school nurse in Concord Public Schools and an ombudsman for nursing home patients, has served as Concord CROP Walk’s official nurse for the past twenty-five years, providing personal care and rides to walkers in need. For the past ten years, she has also led the holiday gift project of Concord Prison Outreach.

Last year, 250 walkers from Concord and nine neighboring towns raised $40,031, bringing the total Concord Area CROP Walk funds raised to $1,110,000. The CROP program was begun by Church World Service in 1946 to provide food, clothing and medical supplies to war-torn Europe and Asia. Seventy-five percent of funds raised by the Concord Area CROP Walk help fund CWS programs to fight the root causes of hunger and provide emergency response to disasters in the United States and worldwide.

Locally, twenty-five percent of funds raised by Concord Area CROP Walk go directly to support hunger-relief programs in nine area towns, including Open Table in Concord and Maynard, the Acton Community Supper and Food Pantry, Bedford Community Table and Pantry, and Loaves and Fishes Food Pantry serving Ayer, Devens, Groton, Harvard, Littleton and Shirley.

To participate in the Walk or donate, see www.concordcrop.org