President McDonald named honorary walk leader for annual Marin CROP Walk

CROP stands for “Communities Responding to Overcome Poverty.” Organized by Church World Service, a well-respected international aid and development organization, this year’s walk theme is “Ending Hunger One Step at a Time.”

Issues of hunger and poverty are very close to McDonald’s heart. He spent more than a decade with Bread for the World, an organization that fights on behalf of hungry people.

“I am humbled to have been asked to serve as honorary walk leader for this year’s Marin CROP Hunger Walk,” McDonald said. “When you consider that tens of thousands of people die every day from preventable diseases, more than half of them related to hunger, it creates a clarity of vision that we must do all that we can to dismantle the path of poverty and hunger and establish a path that avails resources and opportunities to feed and sustain all people. The Gospel of Jesus Christ begins within each one of us, with our compassion toward one another and toward the world. And as the Bible tells us in the story from Mark, compassion moved Jesus to ensure that the multitudes had something to eat. So too, must we be in our compassion and our joined efforts to feed and nourish the hungry in our communities and our world.”

The Marin CROP Hunger Walk is one of 11 hunger walks occurring in the Bay Area April 28-29. The Marin walk begins at First Presbyterian Church of San Rafael, 1510 Fifth Avenue. Registration begins at 1:30 p.m. and the 3-mile stroll through downtown San Rafael starts at 2 p.m.

This year, 25 congregations and faith-based organizations from throughout Marin will be supporting this event. Organizers hope to register 200 walkers and raise $20,000 to help stop hunger and poverty in Marin County and around the world. A portion of the funds raised will go to services to support people served by the Marin Food Bank, St. Vincent de Paul Society and the Marin Interfaith Street Chaplaincy. Last year, 125 walkers raised more than $13,000.

Local Sponsors of this year’s walk include SFTS, Reid and Axelrod Law Firm, Crawford Law Firm, Feinstein Foundation, Christ Presbyterian Church, First Presbyterian Church of San Rafael, Marin Interfaith Council, Minuteman Press, San Geronimo Presbyterian Church, Mt. Tamalpais United Methodist Church, First Presbyterian Church of San Anselmo, and the First Congregational Church of San Rafael.

For more information about the Marin CROP Hunger Walk, contact Leslie Purdy at 415-234-6515 or Vy Nguyen at 510-848-7024, or go to www.bayareahungerwalk.org.