Great Prairie CROP Walk to combat hunger

DuPage-area residents can walk to put a dent in hunger Sunday, Oct. 19, as part of the 33rd Great Prairie Trail CROP Hunger Walk.

The walk starts with registration at 12:30 p.m. and steps off at 1:30 p.m. from Lombard Commons, Grace Street and St. Charles Road, Lombard. The first 300 participants to register will receive free T-shirts.

CROP stands for Communities Responding to Overcome Poverty and is an intergenerational, interfaith event sponsored by Church World Service to help stop hunger. More than 2,000 walks are scheduled annually in the United States, where $294 million has been raised over the past 20 years.

Twenty-five percent of the donations will benefit seven local agencies in Lombard, Villa Park, Addison and York Center, including the PADS homeless shelter site, food pantries, Addison Switchboard, Northern Illinois Food Bank, Walk-In Ministry and the Community Table.

Seventy-five percent goes to Church World Service, which partners with other service groups to help people in need both locally and globally.

For details and sponsor forms, call (630) 627-0152 or visit cwsglobal.org and choose "Find your walk" under the CROP Hunger Walk tab.