Volunteers planning food drive

Polly Kennedy

Pastor Bonita Knox and about 80 community volunteers are converging Sunday to participate in the National Communities Responding to Overcoming Poverty Hunger Walk 2011.

Knox is enthusiastic about the cause.

“I am just hosting this year. It is a community effort,” she stressed. “This has been going on for about five years now, and it is not just our church, it is because of the efforts and organization of other churches and community members that we are able to do this.”

CROP hunger walks are community-wide events sponsored by Church World Service and organized by religious groups, businesses, schools and others to raise funds to end hunger at home and around the world.

“We walk because they walk,” Knox said. “Locally, we have hungry people who walk for shelter, food and for water, and we also have those people who walk nationally and globally. Locally we have folks who have no resources such as a car, and we have people that can help them get to a place to get their needs taken care of.

“Globally, think of the Horn of Africa, where people walk 300 miles to get water and food, escape famine, war and disease, and imagine those people having to make a decision of which child they will leave behind in their quest. It is just heartbreaking.”

Supporters are asked to meet at Trinity Lutheran Church at 1:30 p.m. Sunday at 1705 W. 21st Street in Clovis.

“We ask those participating to bring a nonperishable food item for the Food Bank of Eastern New Mexico,” Knox said. “They can also bring loose change, dollars or a check. Twenty-five percent of what we receive will go to the Food Bank of Eastern New Mexico, and the remainder will go to the Church World Service, which is a Global Network of World Aide.”

Walkers will leave the church at 2 p.m., rain or shine, head from the church to the high school, onto Thornton Street, from 14th Street to Main Street, around Greene Acres Lake and back to the church.

“I think the distance is less than four miles,” Knox said. “I expect to have about 80 participants, and I am praying for more. This is a neat deal for our community, and I know we can indeed make a difference.”