Moorestown CROP Walk Set for May 1

Moorestown, NJ -- The battle to fight hunger locally and globally continues this spring in Moorestown.

This year’s Moorestown CROP Walk will take place Sunday, May 1. The annual event has been held in Moorestown for more than four decades. It solicits donations to fight hunger both globally and locally.

Money raised by participants through per-mile pledges, as well as contributions from the public, support programs of Church World Service, a joint Christian ministry organization of 37 different denominations. It also supports three local church-based food pantries in Moorestown that combat hunger in the community.

The theme for this year’s walk is “Ending Hunger One Step at a Time,” the event supports the Biblical message, “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty…and did not take care of you?” (Matthew 25:44).

The walk will leave from the Saint Matthew’s Lutheran Church, located at 318 Chester Avenue in Moorestown, promptly at 1:30 p.m. Registration begins at 1 p.m.

Water and bathroom facilities will be available at checkpoints along the walk, and there will be refreshments for the walkers when they return to St. Matthew’s.

The 5-mile scenic course (or optional 3-mile and 1-mile routes for individuals who prefer a shorter course) through Moorestown is meant to symbolize the reality faced by so many people in the world who must walk many miles each day to obtain food and drinking water, event organizers said.

Currently, well over 2,000 communities across the United States join in more than 1,600 CROP Hunger Walks each year. More than 5 million CROP Hunger Walkers have participated in more than 36,000 CROP Hunger Walks in the last two decade.

Since 1974, the local walk has raised almost $570,000, with nearly $139,000 given to support hunger-related programs in Moorestown, according to event organizers.

In addition to providing emergency food supplies and hunger relief, CROP Walk funds also pay for resources that help enable people to meet their own needs, including items such as seeds, agricultural tools, wells and water systems, technical training, and micro-enterprise loans.

Residents of the greater Moorestown community can support this year’s CROP Walk in a variety of ways.

They can sign up as walkers by contacting an individual church coordinator in one of the sponsoring Moorestown congregations: Trinity Episcopal, First United Methodist, First Baptist, First Presbyterian, St. Matthew’s Lutheran, Bethel A.M.E, Friends Meeting.

If they can’t walk, they can pledge tax-deductible donations to one of the walkers.

They can also visit www.crophungerwalk.org/moorestownnj to make an online donation and/or find out about other ways to get involved in supporting the event.

For further information, contact Mae Trebing, this year’s overall event coordinator from Saint Matthew’s Lutheran Church at ironhorse2102@gmail.com or 609-239-4942.

The attached image from a previous CROP Walk was previously provided