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CROP grew out of the fields of
middle America. It was born in 1947, in response to the needs of hungry
and suffering people in post-War Europe and Asia. U.S. Christians wanted
to help their overseas neighbors in need.
CROP's original mission was to
collect food commodities -- primarily grain -- and ship them overseas.
Trains, boats, and eventually planes would come into play.
For awhile it
looked as if the new organization's name would be Christian Rural Overseas
Relief. The first three words were a natural fit, according to John
Metzler Sr., CROP's first director. It was Leslie Moss of Church World
Service who suggested that we pick some word beginning with a P, so we could
have CROP as a name. Program was selected and CROP had a
name.
For five years, CROP was
jointly sponsored by Church World Service, the Catholic Rural Life Conference,
and Lutheran World Relief. In 1952, CROP reverted to Church World Service,
its original sponsor.
From its inception, rural grain
canvasses had been the lifeblood of CROP fund raising. But by the late
'60s, when David Bower was assigned to set up a CROP office in Michigan, the
rural canvass was, in Bower's words, "a hard row to hoe."
"I worked with the Farm
Bureau and local pastors to organize a group that would go door-to-door in an
area to promote the canvass," says Bower, CWS regional director in
Michigan. "There just didn't seem to be the energy in Michigan for that
sort of thing. I'd heard something about CROP Walks, an experimental idea
being tried in a couple of states. It sounded interesting to me but my
superiors weren't too supportive. I was told I could try the 'walk thing,"
but my main effort should st on canvasses."
Superiors aren't always right,
and this new 'walk thing' was to revolutionize the CROP program. As Bower
points out, "In the last 36 years, Michigan CROP Hunger Walks have generated
over $39 million to support local hunger agencies and the global hunger/poverty
programs of CWS. Not bad for an experiment!"
With a shift from a rural
agricultural focus to a suburban/urban base in the '70s, CROP became simply the
Community Hunger Appeal of Church World Service.
As CROP Hunger Walks have
enjoyed continued success, they have become vital, interfaith community-wide
events -- an opportunity for people from throughout a community to come together
to help neighbors in need around the block and around the world.
CROP now stands for Communities
Responding to Overcome Poverty -- a worthy name for our response to hunger and
poverty in an ever-changing world."
The above is a reprint from the Church
World Service Publication called, Service, from the Fall 2007
issue. |
CROP History |