Crop Walk - May 6th - can you help?

[andrewlittle]

I have been volunteering as the Co-ordinator for the local Crop Walk - an effort of Church World Service to raise funds for international hunger relief and local food pantries.

I am also one of two volunteer chaplains at Upper Iowa University, and have undertaken an effort to get the students involved in the effort.

To that end, I just started a virtual "Walk" on the CWS/Crop Walk website. I am going to recruit UIU students to sign up and become involved this way, as well as finding local sponsors.

Can I ask any of you who are familiar with CWS/Crop Walk, or those who would like to contribute to this worthy cause to consider making a donation to jump start the process for the UIU team. My hope is two-fold - the first obviously to raise much needed funds for hunger relief - the second to help UIU generally make their first foray into local fund-raising a successful and contagious one, and to generate a little more relationship between the students and community.

If any of you feel called to help in this effort, you can visit the UIU page by using the link below. As of this writing, I am the only participant (the page is less than 10 minutes old), but I am hoping to get at least 10 students involved. I would actually like to get 100, and for the UIU community to contribute in a large way to this local effort. But this effort is just starting, and the Crop Walk will take place May 6th.

https://www.kintera.org/faf/search/searchTeamPart.asp?ievent=180777&lis=0&kntae180777=4582A9EA16BF49AF8B8F57EA1ABC741E&supId=0&team=1945501

Thank you for even considering it.

[Jamie McDaniel]

Let's bump this up to help Andrew in the Crop Walk.

On a side note, when I was attending a "moderate" Baptist church and wearing my button that read "Gay Baptist for Justice" the only two things I would donate to were their Crop Walk and their Habitat for Humanity build (two very good works.) Any other time the offering plate went around, I would drop a card in showing how much I was mailing to a welcoming and affirming UCC church instead. That was part of Soulforce's withholding tithes and offerings campaign.

Andrew Little's Page (https://www.kintera.org/faf/donorReg/donorPledge.asp?ievent=180777&lis=1&kntae180777=28E5B9804E734DFEBE6A9C9D21E1D203&supId=173230370)

[Emproph]

I don't know what I just signed up for, but I can definitely handle a virtual walk..

..Through a virtual corn field, all the better.

[andrewlittle]

Thanks for the bump(s). The Office of Student Development at UIU is sending out the link today to all students, faculty and staff. We'll see if some will join in the virtual walk if they can't actually take the real one. To date, 13 students have signed up for walking with the community for real. That's a side bonus I didn't really expect, since on the weekend of the 6th they would be studying for their finals.

Anyway, thank you both for helping to make the students contributions just that much better.

There is a P.S. to this story. Not everyone in the area is happy that I got the university involved. It seems there's a bit of an ownership situation with some of the older folks in town. Gee, that's too bad, isn't it? :D