Locals Battle Rainy Weather for CROP Hunger Walk

Community churchgoers and other residents from Londonderry and around the area battled rainy conditions for the first CROP Hunger Walk in town.

According to Marilyn DeLuca, who helped bring the event to the community, the walk was organized through Saint Peters Episcopal Church.

She said that people at the church had ideas to give back such as helping Haiti or going on mission trips, but they saw the walk as something that could benefit the area the best.

DeLuca said that 25 percent of donations from the walk will go directly toward grants for Saint Jude Food Pantry and Derry Sunshine Soup Kitchen. The other 75 percent goes to Church World Service, the organization that founded the first CROP walk.

She said that the name of the walk has lost its meaning over time, but it started with a group of farmers in the midwest who wanted to help other countries with excess food.

The acronym CROP stands for Christian Rural Overseas Program.

Sloane Franklin, also from Saint Peters, said that he has done two CROP walks before.

He works in Manchester as a clinical social worker – a pyschotherapist – interacting with people who have severe mental illnesses.

"A lot of my clients use food pantries," he said. "(Hunger is) really something that I think that a lot of people who don't live in those situations aren't aware of. It's not just outside of the U.S."

Marilyn Wade and Sue Ahearns came to the walk as part of a team of about 12 people from Londonderry United Methodist Church.

Wade spoke to the importance of participating in the cause.

"I was always fortunate enough to have food on the table," she said, adding that of all of the opportunities to give back, she was glad to be involved.

Also helping with traffic control throughout the 3-mile course were two dozen teens from Londonderry's police explorer post. Megan Moran, who is the chief of the post, said that the group tries to help out in the community, which also works as an educational tool.

The volunteer walk took people from Londonderry Middle School down to the Town Common. Walkers looped down Pillsbury Road, through to Moose Hill kindergarten, up trails back toward the middle school before sending them back around to the town common.

To see some of the donations raised for the Londonderry walk, visit here.