Young Harris College announces sixteenth Crop Walk

Young Harris College invites you to join its faculty, staff, students, and neighbors within the community in its sixteenth CROP Walk. On Sunday, October 8, we will congregate near the tennis courts on the YHC campus. The walk will start promptly at 2pm, so please allow time to arrive and sign in.

This year's walk is YHC's sixteenth and its first. For the past fifteen years, the team from YHC has walked in Hayesville, NC, as part of the Clay County CROP Walk. In that time, we have raised just over $100,000. This year, however, Georgia has been designated as one of the states within the newly created Southeast Region with its own regional director. Other states include Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Tennessee. So, this is the first time the YHC team is able to walk on Georgia soil, and this will be the first CROP Walk in Georgia under the new direction. What is more, this will be the first CROPWalk at YHC, and we will celebrate by inaugurating the cross-country path currently in its first year of use. "We walk because they

walk" is the theme of this year's CROP Walk. We who have so much walk by choice in support of so many others around the world because they walk out of necessity. Our walk for raising funds helps alleviate the burdens of those who must walk miles and miles daily in search of food, water, firewood, supplies, and/or an education. Our funds also assist local agencies helping those in need, as 25% of our total proceeds are returned to us for local use. Our walk is symbolic and real.

CWS (Church World Service) administers all monies raised by CROPWalks. With over 2,000 CROP Walks across the country, and representing 35 different Anglican, Protestant, and Orthodox denominations, CWS is able to respond immediately to emergency relief needs.

Supplies of tents, blankets, water, food, and health kits are rushed to areas where need is greatest. In the past several years, CWS response has included Honduras following Hurricane Mitch, Sri Lanka and Indonesia after the tsunami, and the Gulf coast after Hurricane Katrina.

Innumerable other examples can be cited in some 80 different countries around the world where CWS is helping dig fresh water wells, establish self-sufficient agricultural programs, detect land mines to restore fields to their original use, and be an advocate in peace and justice issues.

CWS has the reputation of staying for the long haul. Following the crises in Oklahoma City, and 9/11 in New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania, CWS responded within a matter of hours to mobilize counselors in those areas to help with what came to be called "public trauma." Many of those counseling services are still operative in those areas. The same can be said of the restoration of the countries affected by natural disasters. CWS supports long-term rehabilitation.

If you, your church, your civic group, or your neighborhood would like to join the CROP Walk, please contact coordinator Meg Gring Whitley (706-379- 5126) for materials, or visit the YHC web site at http://www.yhc.edu. For more information concerning CWS, access http://www.churchworldservice. org. All walkers are insured, and anyone under the age of eighteen must have a sponsor sheet signed by aparent.

We walk because they walk. We hope you will join us. As CWS says, "It will be good for your hearts and soles."

Founded in 1886, Young Harris College is a private, core liberal arts college focused on university preparation. Historically affiliated with The United Methodist Church, a primary goal of Young Harris College is to provide a quality education for the whole person: intellectually, socially, culturally, and spiritually. To learn more about Young Harris College, visit us at www.yhc.edu.