York County CROP Walk Set for Oct. 24 at Dinkins Hall

Quick Facts

Winthrop students will join hundreds of children, youth and adults supporting this 33rd anniversary of what is South Carolina’s oldest CROP Walk to raise money to feed the hungry.

York County’s CROP Walk has raised nearly $600,000 in its 33 years, with $150,000 remaining with local agencies.

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Ellin McDonough

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Winthrop students worked at
the spinning plant with Genesis
Cooperative women.

ROCK HILL, S.C. - Winthrop students participating in this year’s York County CROP Walk on Oct. 24 hope to collect more than 11,000 cans of food to help local needy families.

They will join hundreds of children, youth and adults supporting this 33rd anniversary of what is South Carolina’s oldest CROP Walk to raise money to feed the hungry. York County’s CROP Walk has raised nearly $600,000 in its 33 years, with $150,000 remaining with local agencies.

Winthrop’s Center for Career and Civic Engagementanticipates recruiting 18 teams from its freshman class to walk. Another 17 Winthrop teams will participate in CanStruction on Oct. 23 to collect canned goods and build a work of art on the concourse of the Winthrop Coliseum. The route of the CROP Walk will go through the Coliseum so walkers can vote on their favorite art project.

“For our new students, participating in CROP is a great introduction to our community and how we can work together to advocate for those in need and solve local problems,” said Ellin McDonough, program director for the Center for Career and Civic Engagement. “Our teams are energized to work alongside the Rock Hill community, and I can’t wait to see what they will accomplish.”

Organizers have dedicated this year’s walk to Father David Valtierra, the campus minister for Catholic students who helped start the walk and stood in solidarity with this community’s poor until his passing earlier this year. “Father David was a tireless advocate for the poor and the hungry in our community and around the world, and we look forward to walking in solidarity with the many he served with over the years,” said the Rev. Narcie Jeter, coordinator of the walk and leader of the Wesley Foundation.

Jeter said this year’s CROP Walk T-shirts will be bought from Maggie’s Organics, which sells clothing made in cooperatives in Nicaragua and Costa Rica. The gray and hunter green shirts made of 100 percent cotton are $4.

Students from the Wesley Foundation have traveled to work with the cooperatives that made the shirts many times over the past decade. “I am excited that our CROP Walk is able to support hungry people here and all over the world and that this year’s T-shirts are able to provide food and a better life to the women we have worked alongside in the Genesis Cooperative. These women have built their spinning plant by hand and have worked tirelessly to build a stable life for their families,” said Adrienne Chlumsky, a junior from Baltimore, Md.

Also, Winthrop’s Center for Career and Civic Engagement and the Winthrop Wesley Foundation will hold an interactive hunger demonstration on Oct. 13 to educate students about hunger, its related causes and how to eradicate hunger. Mary Catherine Hinds, assistant director of the Southeastern region of Church World Service, will speak at the 8 p.m. event in Tillman Auditorium.

CROP Walk is the community hunger appeal of Church World Service. The organization represents 36 Protestant, Orthodox and Anglican churches in the United States working with indigenous churches and organizations in more than 80 countries.

On Oct. 24, registration and entertainment will start at 2 p.m. at Dinkins Hall. The walk begins at 3 p.m. Participants can select between a 10-kilometer walk or a one-mile “mini walk,” both of which start and end at Dinkins. Admission to the walk is a canned food item, which will be divided among area food pantries.

For more information, contact the Wesley Foundation at 803/327-5640 or e-mail Jeter at winthropwesley@gmail.com.

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