CROP Walk to benefit attack victims
by Diana DeLeon, reporter

    The DFW area will sponsor 13 CROP walks Sunday, Oct. 21, at various locations.

    Tarrant County College students are invited to participate in the national fund-raising event that benefits local charities, victims of the Sept. 11 attack and the world’s needy.

    Walkers will raise funds by recruiting sponsors for their participation in the 5k walks.

    This year’s goal for the DFW area is to recruit 300,000 walkers to raise $200,000. Last year the local walks in Tarrant and Dallas counties raised $164,000.

    All walkers will receive a 2001 CROP walk T-shirt.

The Fort Worth walk starts at 2 p.m. from the Texas Christian University parking lot.

    Music from the folk band Crossroads, made up of members and staff of the First United Methodist Church in downtown Fort Worth, will provide entertainment.

    Hot dogs, soda and snacks will be provided to the walk participants with TCU students cooking. Call the Rev. Ken McIntosh at 817-534-1790 for more information.

    The Grapevine/Colleyville/Southlake CROP walk will start at 2 p.m. from Bicentennial Park in Southlake. Entertainment will be provided by a band called Drums of Peace, and popcorn, power bars, Krispy Kreme donuts, fruit and water will be provided to all participants of the walk. Call Amy Shepherd at 817-488-7009 for more information.

    The Mid-Cities walk will start at 4 p.m. from the Pavilion in Chisholm Park in Hurst. The Mid-Cities CROP walk will offer hot dogs, chips, soda and yogurt to walkers, and the Christian rock band Where’s My Latte will perform. Call Karen Windham at 817-283-8985 for more information.

    Other cites in the DFW area holding CROP walks include Dallas, Allen, Duncanville, Lewisville, Garland, Mesquite, Plano, Richardson and Weatherford.

    On-site registration for all walks begins 30 minutes before start time. Contact the Rev. David Huffman, with Church World Service (CWS), at 817-923-4703 for information on all the DFW area walks.

    The CROP walk started in 1947 in response to post WWII need. It was the first fund-raising walk held in the United States.

    The first Tarrant County walk was in Fort Worth in 1973.

    CROP, Communities Reaching Out to People, is a national event that benefits local, national and global disaster relief and hunger relief efforts of the CWS.

    The Church World Service, a non-profit ministry of the National Council of Churches, is sponsored by 36 different denominations.

    The CWS currently has two volunteer disaster teams in New York, Washington, D. C., and Pennsylvania, providing emotional and crisis support clergy and counselors to victims of the Sept. 11 attack and their families.

    The Rev. Huffman estimates that the disaster teams will remain in New York for at least three years.

    The CWS is a long-term service agency that acts as a coordinating body and matches up expertise of members’ disaster teams with the needs in an affected community.

    Funds raised by CROP walkers will be split: 75 percent will go to the CWS, and 25 percent, to local charities.

    In Tarrant County, local charities that will benefit from the CROP walk include Grace in Grapevine, N.E.E.D. in the Mid-Cities and Hurst as well as First Methodist Mission, Tarrant Area Food Bank, Presbyterian Night Shelter and Northside Inter-Church Agency, all in Fort Worth.