A walk geared to raise funds for hunger is set to step off in Carbon County.

The Carbon County CROP Walk will be held starting at 2 p.m. Sunday at 600 Riverview Road (West Bowmans), Lehighton.

It will begin at Riverview Park in East Penn Township, and will head south along the D&L Trail.

Walkers will then have a choice of returning along the same trail, or using connecting paths to complete the loop.

“The purpose of the walk is to raise money to combat world hunger,” said Tony Pagotto, pastor, for both Dinkey Memorial Lutheran Church in Ashfield, as well as St. John’s Lutheran Church in Mahoning Township.

Pagotto said the overall sponsor of the event is Church World Services, for which 75% of the profits will go to and the ministries they provide, while the remainder will go to Trinity Lutheran Church in Lehighton for its food pantry, which is affiliated with Shepherd House.

“We haven’t had a CROP Walk for a couple of years now; COVID kind of interfered,” he said. “We’re trying to get it going again, resurrect it.

Pagotto said that the event had previously been located at the Weissport canal, “but the logistics of it was getting a little more difficult.

“From a ministry aspect, I think it is important for us all to focus on those who do suffer from hunger.” he said. “Since COVID, donations were down; 100 million more people (over 600 million pre-COVID, over 700 million post-COVID) suffer from hunger (worldwide) than there was before COVID, so it had a huge impact on the hunger.”

Pagotto added, “So we are very blessed to be where we’re at in the country where we live.

“But there are some who struggle each day with it,” he said. “I think this is just one way for us to reach out to help those in need.”