BY CYNTHIA Z. BIDDLECOMB
Calling all walkers and runners in Los Alamos County and beyond! Save the date of Sunday, November 22nd on your calendar for the annual Los Alamos CROP Hunger Walk and Turkey Trot. Atomic City Runners will be there, too, but anyone can participate in this fun, community event. Participants are simply asked to make a monetary donation to help alleviate hunger and provide disaster relief locally and around the globe.
For more than 40 years, this event has donated one-quarter of the funds collected to go to L.A. Cares, the local food pantry serving people who are facing food insufficiency. This month alone, about 100 Los Alamos County households are receiving basic food supplies from L.A. Cares.
The CROP Hunger Walk and Turkey Trot route starts and ends in the parking lot in front of Los Alamos Middle School (on North Mesa). Runners and walkers register in the school cafeteria, starting at 1:15pm. When the call goes off at 2:00pm, outside at the starting line, runners lead off and walkers follow. Well-behaved dogs are welcome on leash on the route, but not inside the cafeteria.
The runners and walkers have a choice of either a 1.7 or a 2.57 mile course. The shorter course bypasses the stables; the longer course loops through them. At the end of the hunger walk course, participants return to the cafeteria where they have been entered into a drawing for turkeys and pies. Refreshments are provided while waiting for the drawing.
Between now and November 22, potential walk/run participants are encouraged to talk up the event and ask friends and neighbors for donations to the cause. You can start the process by setting up your own fundraising page online at this website: https://www.crophungerwalk.
On the CROP Hunger Walk website, you can link your page to your social media accounts and help spread the word. Or, just link that web address in an email to friends and family. Want to give money but not walk this year? You can use the above website to donate to the event or choose a registered runner or walker to support with your funds. Don’t want to register online in advance? Just show up on the 22nd, enter the drawing, and make a monetary donation to the cause; checks can be made out to “CROP Walk” and turned in at the time of registration.
At the end of the event, donations raised by local folks will be tallied and reported to the community through another article in this news source. Funds you raise or donate will go to the cause of fighting hunger and poverty in Los Alamos, across our nation, and around the world.