Advent Lutheran Church (ELCA)

Monadnock Area Church Members Raise More than $10,000 in Annual Crop Walk

110 area residents raised some $10,000 in a 4-mile-plus walking route through Rindge, New Hampshire on Saturday, October 20. Walkers received pledges from their fellow church members, friends and family members over the past few months. Those funds will go to the nine area food shelf programs and to nationaland international relief efforts sponsored by Church World Service.

"We expect the total raised to go much higher between now and November 9, when all pledges are due in," said Tom Gundlach, who has coordinated the local effort for the past 7 years.  "The CROP Walk is special to this area and this one was extra special because it was the 30th time we've done it in the Monadnock Region. It's such a fun and easy way to support the important work of our food shelves."

Walkers gathered at about 8:30 a.m. at Advent Lutheran Church in Rindge, this year's host church. After snacks and a blessing, they hit the trails and most were back at the church by 10 a.m. for a pancake breakfast. Each year the event is hosted by a different church, Gundlach says.

In addition to pledges to individuals, this year's walk received in-kind contributions from Stonyfield Farm, Evelyn Fogg, Mary Gilmore, United Site Services, and an anonymous donor from Advent Lutheran.

Monadnock residents may still contribute to this effort by being in touch with someone at their church or by contacting Gundlach at 532-7192 before November 9.

We're IT for Crop Walk 2007--the 30th Anniversary of the Walk

Advent Lutheran Church has been an active participant in the annual area Crop Walk for several years.  Now we've been asked to host this year's event, which will be October 20, 2007--and we're really rather excited about it.  This is the 60th anniversary of the invention of the Crop Walk nationally, and the 30th anniversary of the participation of the Monadnock Area Churches.  That means it's going to be a big WHOOP-TEE-DO and we at Advent, in partnership with members of all the other area churches, are going to make sure we get lots of participants and raise lots of money.

Twenty-five percent of the funds raised by our walkers--who accept pledges per mile from their friends and family members--will be distributed equally to all the food shelves operating in the area. The remainder will go to the world hunger efforts of Church World Service worldwide.  Church World Service has gained a reputation as a nonprofit group with some of the lowest administrative overhead when it comes to fundraising. That means most of what is raised goes directly to the people who need it!

The walk will be 5 miles long--jeepers that's nothing. There's one 90-plus year-old-woman from Hancock who does it without blinking an eye! 

One of our first tasks at Advent Lutheran will be to map out a 5-mile route from our church.  We'll  most likely go towards the railroad trails that run close behind church--keeping folks on our side of Route 202--and looping toward the Woodbound Inn and then into the town of Jaffrey.  We'll work out those details as soon as the weather warms up and the snow goes away!

A recruiters meeting will take place in early September at Advent Lutheran Church.  A representative from each of the participating churches will attend this meeting and get the pledge packets and registration forms for their congregation.  We hope to have a representative from Church World Service come to this event and explain everything and tell us the wonderful story of Church World Service and its missions. Everyone will be welcome to attend this evening.

Many thanks to local area coordinator Tom Gundlach from the Congregational Church in Jaffrey, who met with an Advent Lutheran Church sub-group on a recent very cold Tuesday evening and got us all started. Tom is really the Go-To-Guy when it comes to the Monadnock region Crop Walk and we'll be depending upon him to keep us on the straight and narrow. So far, your Advent Committee is Jeff Poston, Jim Bartlett and Chris Sheldon. Many more will be needed down the line!

With all of us pulling together, I bet we can beat last year's record fundraising, which was somewhere in the neighborhood of $14,000! Whoohoo!

Respectfully,

Chris Sheldon