Local

First Coulee Regoin Hunger Walk set for October

Published

5 years ago

September 13, 2019

Kaitlyn Riley

The Coulee Region Hunger Walk Committee first started meeting in July to create the event.

The first ever Coulee Region Hunger Walk will be Oct. 13 at Myrick Park in La Crosse.

Harvey Witzenburg has served as chair on the committee organizing the event. He said they first discussed this idea last July.

“We’ve been working on this for about a year now,” Witzenburg said. “We have been planning the most effective way to involve people and provide food for families in our area.”

The event will give 35 percent of proceeds to The Hunger Task Force, 35 percent to WAFER Food Pantry, and the other 30 percent may be donated to other nonprofit food organizations.

The WAFER Food Pantry serves 1,500 families each month. Executive Director Erin Waldhart said this event is a chance for the community to step into a solution.

“I think this goes beyond our agencies themselves,” Waldhart said. “It goes to the point of educating our communities on the need that continues to persist with regards to hunger, food insecurity and poverty in our area.”

The committee said 25.2 percent of people in La Crosse County live in poverty, and almost 50 percent of students in La Crosse schools receive free or reduced lunches.

The committee is asking all participants to collect a minimum of $20 in pledges. Registration will open at noon, and the walk/run is scheduled to start at 1:00 p.m.

Related Topics:Hunger Walk La Crosse

Kaitlyn Riley

Kaitlyn Riley’s passion for communications started on her family’s dairy farm in Gays Mills, Wis. Wanting to share agriculture’s story, she studied strategic communications and broadcast journalism at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In college, she held officer positions with the Association of Women in Agriculture and Badger Dairy Club while volunteering as a news reporter for the college radio station. She also founded the university’s first agricultural radio talk show, AgChat. In her professional career, Kaitlyn has worked in radio, print and television news doing everything from covering local events to interviewing presidential candidates, and putting back on her barn boots to chat with farmers in the field. Today, Kaitlyn can be seen covering local stories that matter to you in the La Crosse area.