Red Bank Catholic High School sophomore Bella Murrer designed a poster to help inspire the participants in this year’s Red Bank CROP Walk. PHOTO COURTESY OF BELLA MURRER LITTLE SILVER — With the goal of raising $115,000 and 14,000 pounds of food, walkers will return to Red Bank Regional High School on Oct. 19 to participate in the Red Bank CROP Walk, the largest of nearly 200 such walks in the metropolitan area.
Participants in the 5-mile CROP Walk — which winds through Red Bank, Fair Haven and Little Silver — have provided food and donations for local partners in Monmouth County since the walk began in 1981.
But while the participants support local partners — such as Lunch Break in Red Bank or Meals at Noon in Long Branch — 75 percent of funds support global programs in 80 different countries, a fact that Red Bank CROP Walk Coordinator and Colts Neck resident Janie Schildge emphasizes.
“I think that we live in a very special place in the United States. … I feel like here, at home, it is taken for granted that we will always have [amenities],” said Schildge, who has served as coordinator since 1985.
“We can’t shut the rest of the world out. We can’t just say ‘Well, we’re exceptional. We’re Americans, we’ll be okay.’ We won’t be okay unless we care for the others.”
For the last several years, the Red Bank CROP Walk has raised over $100,000 in funds.
But while Schildge is proud of the work Red Bank CROP Walk accomplishes each year, the aspect that makes her proudest is the involvement that teenagers have taken in the walk, with a teen coordinating committee working with an adult committee to discuss projects and ideas.
“It makes me feel very good,” Schildge said about seeing teens involved with charity. “The other thing is that they involve themselves with kids they don’t know … that’s also very good, because we have to work with others to solve a lot of problems.”
Members of the teen coordinating committee come from a wide range of schools in Monmouth County. Annie Hellmann, a junior at Colts Neck High School, was assigned to study local partners as part of a skit the teen leaders perform each year.
“It’s actually funny, because I was assigned local partners who provide education, and I thought that CROP walks were just for hunger,” Hellmann said.
The partners she researched included Aslan Youth Ministries, a nonprofit in Red Bank that provides tutoring to at-risk youths, and Monmouth Day Care Center, also based in Red Bank.
“I guess they feed the mind,” Hellmann said. “…This really spoke to me because I want to be a teacher myself, and I wanted to help these kids and make their lives better through school, so I actually started to volunteer at Monmouth Day Care Center. CROP Walk introduced me to places like these, that give help and need it, too.”
Red Bank Catholic High School sophomore Bella Murrer served as a teen leader for the first time this year and designed a poster with the words, “Everyone deserves a place at the table. Work together to solve the problem of hunger.”
“It’s important for teenagers [to be involved in the CROP Walk] because a lot of people, in general, don’t know about the effects of hunger on people — not only in poorer countries, but right here in our own towns,” Murrer said.
Ryan Geary, a junior at High Technology High School in Lincroft, offered a more direct reason why teenagers should be involved in the walk.
“It is well known that many teenagers have a talent for asking people for money,” Geary said. “And raising money is the goal of our event.”
To learn more about the Red Bank Crop Walk, visit redbankcropwalk.com.