Nearly 100 people walked through downtown York on Sunday afternoon, starting at one church and stopping at six others to pray for people who, unlike them, trek miles every day for food and water.
The Western York County CROP Walk began at Trinity Methodist Church with donations from walkers to needy agencies in the county.
“Any little bit helps in this economy,” said organizer Alice Smith, who noted the turnout was smaller this year by a few dozen.
Last year, the walk helped PATH Ministries of York feed around 40 families, said Cheryl Curtin, executive director of the agency that gives groceries and financial assistance to people in need.
Not long ago, PATH fed around 25 families each Monday, Wednesday and Friday with boxes of canned foods.
Now the agency feeds between 40 and 50 families three days a week, Curtin said, and helps another 35 people with financial assistance, such as paying overdue electricity bills, each day PATH opens its doors.
The need for both has doubled in just more than two years, Curtin estimated, pointing to economic times that have put hoards of people out of jobs.
“The phone is always, always ringing,” she said between missed calls in her office Friday, just before lunchtime.
Voices on the other end of those calls are struggling families, the elderly, people with disabilities and the homeless, all who have incomes below federal standards and who live in the York school district.
Needy households in York, Smyrna, Hickory Grove, Sharon and McConnells can apply, Curtin said.
And just feet from Curtin's hall office, dozens of people shuffled and crammed into a waiting room to sit for hours, hungry.
They all had appointments or had come to make one. Scheduling an appointment became policy at PATH last October, Curtin said, when staff couldn't manage the “waves” of people who needed help.
And PATH, like the people it serves, also is desperate.
Donations drop to “almost nothing” in summer months, when Samaritans vacation and forget about dropping off canned goods. Those donations pick back up near the holidays, when people are feeling most charitable, Curtin said.
In the fall, donations hit a lull.
Luckily, Curtin said, the federal Farm Bill that passed in 2008 and sent extra stimulus money to food banks such as Second Harvest has helped keep the PATH warehouse stocked, “though it's not the widest variety of foods.”
The truck comes each Wednesday and Friday with palettes of canned tomatoes, corn, green beans and tuna; cereal and peanut butter; shampoo and toothpaste.
“You never know what they'll bring,” said Dave Thielbar, a retired x-ray technician who helps unload the trucks each week during his free time.
Thielbar, 58, has been a PATH volunteer for five years. He started by donating a box of canned goods to the agency. When he saw the tractor trailer unloading in the back warehouse, he wanted to do more.
Back then, Thielbar could get out by noon.
“We seldom close before 1 (p.m.) these days,” Thielbar said. “Or 2, or 3 sometimes.”
He motioned to the full waiting room up front, where the crowd had grown to around 25 people by 11:30 a.m.
Of those 25 people, four said they had jobs.
One 57-year-old woman from Hickory Grove said she'd lost her job in February as a cook at a restaurant that went out of business. She couldn't work anywhere else because she didn't have a car, she said. She walked to the restaurant for years before it closed.
Now she finds a ride to PATH for a week's worth of groceries to get by. Last time, she got a box of crackers, canned pork, egg noodles, cereal and a cake.
Another woman, her fiancé and her 8-month-old daughter sat huddled in the middle of the room, waiting for their names to be called. A PATH employee brought a cardboard box full of miscellaneous foods and condiments.
The packages were gone in less than a minute.
“They missed out,” a man said about the family. He held a package of chicken bouillon cubes and a can of baby clams he scored from the box.
“Whether you can use it or not,” he said, “you probably know somebody who could.”
Sunday at the Crop Walk, where the same types of items were donated along with canned vegetables and other nonparishables, volunteers said they'd do anything to help.
“Other people have to walk so far to get what they need,” said Ruby McCarter of Tirzah, who brought milk, toothpaste, cereal and a monetary donation.
“So today, we're walking.”
Money and food donations support Pilgrims' Inn, the Meals on Wheels program for the York County Council on Aging, HOPE in Rock Hill, the Fort Mill CARE Center and PATH Ministries in York.
Last year, walkers gave $9,424 to the agencies.
Christy Mullins — 803-329-4062
@Nyx.CommentBody@