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Information: CROP Walk is a nationwide interreligious effort to address hunger. Last year we sponsored the first Buddhist CROP Walk team in Austin. Not only that: We won the coveted Newcomer's Award for raising more money than any other new team. Our star walker was Nancy MacLaine of Plum Blossom Sangha. I am once again seeking support in the Buddhist community, your support.
For history buffs, CROP ( "Christian Rural Overseas Project") was organized in 1947 by the Church World Services to share Midwest grain with post-war Europe and Asia. The walking part was added in 1969 by a group in Bismark, ND. Now 2,000 communities in the U.S. supported CROP walks in 2005. Of these Austin was the #4 fundraiser. The Austin CROP Walk is organized as a partnership of the Austin Area Interreligious Ministries, of which the Austin Zen Center is a member organization, and the Capital Area Food Bank. Nowadays much of the money raised stays in the United States (in fact, Texas is the state with the very highest percentage of hunger nationwide) and most goes to eighty other countries.
Here is how it works: The CROP Walk is both a fundraiser and a community bearing witness event. A recruiter (like me) recruits walkers in a usually religious community, walkers in turn recruit sponsors wherever he or she can find them. Walkers collect donations from sponsors and represent them and the community in the CROP Walk. The CROP Walk proper is a community event in which participants walk in solidarity with the hungry throughout the world (who typically have to walk a lot in their daily lives). There will actually be two walks in Austin March 3rd and 4th at Roy Guerrero Colorado River Park. (If you are attending the sesshin on those dates, become a walker anyway and just don't show up for the walking part.) Further information is available about the Austin CROP Walk at http://main.org/cropwalk/
The recruiter needs walkers, walkers need sponsors. Each walker on average collects about $80 from sponsors, by nickel-and-diming community members, friends, relatives. Clever walkers even sponsor themselves. (Apparently there is a teenager in Austin who raised $3,000.00 by himself two years ago, but your goals can be more modest than this.) Please volunteer as a walker. Let me know and I will send you further instructions. Or please volunteer as a sponsor. If you fail to find a friendlier walker, you can sponsor me. Let me know and I will send you further instructions. If anyone would like to volunteer as treasurer to manage the vast funds the Buddhist community will raise, let me know.
Contact at AZC: Kojin Dinsmore, 452-5777
To Participate:
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