“Good! Good! We will do that!”


October 27, 2011

Daniel, Deu, and Awal, among young participants in the October 16 CROP Hunger Walk in Rochester, N.Y., organized by teens in the Mary's Place Interact Chapter of the Rotary Club. Photo: Keely Costello

Daniel, Deu, and Awal, among young participants in the October 16 CROP Hunger Walk in Rochester, N.Y., organized by teens in the Mary’s Place Interact Chapter of the Rotary Club. Photo: Keely Costello

That was the immediate response of refugee teens in northwestern Rochester, N.Y., when Kathy LaBue suggested they organize a CROP Hunger Walk as a community service project.

LaBue is co-founder of Mary’s Place, a community center for the many resettled refugees living in Rochester’s Maplewood and Edgerton neighborhoods.  “I had walked in CROP Hunger Walks before, but the refugees hadn’t participated until now,” she said.

The teens who organized the Walk are among members of the center’s all-refugee chapter of Interact, Rotary International’s service club for young people ages 12-18.  The chapter has 23 members of seven nationalities, especially Karen and Karenni from Burma, Congolese from the Democratic Republic of Congo, and ethnic Nepalis from Bhutan.

Their CROP Hunger Walk was held on Sunday, October 16, and raised more than $2,100.  In all, about 70 refugees walked.  Five neighborhood churches assisted by raising support money for the walkers: Church of the Ascension (Episcopal), Wesley United Methodist Church, Sacred Heart Cathedral (Roman Catholic), Lake Avenue Baptist Church, and Lutheran Church of the Holy Redeemer.

All new refugee arrivals to Rochester are brought either by Church World Service or the U.S. Catholic Conference – two of 10 U.S. national voluntary agency partners in the federal government’s refugee admissions program – and are resettled through the Catholic Family Center Refugee Resettlement Program.

The refugee teens’ commitment to helping others was evident in their comments at the walk.  Toyi, age 12, born to refugee parents in a camp in Tanzania, said, “We walked to support people who are hungry.  The Walk was 100 percent rainy and cold, but we walked.  I thought it was the right thing to do.”

Thi Dah, President of Mary’s Place’s Interact Chapter, reported, “I raised $25 to stop hunger in the whole world.  I will continue walking the CROP Walk to support the whole world ‘til the whole world is not hungry.”

Muhamad Alias, the chapter’s past-president and co-founder, said, “I walked CROP Walk because I want to help hungry people.  I raised $122 from my teachers and other people.”

Both Thi Dah and Muhamad Alias are children of refugees from Burma, and were born in refugee camps in Thailand, LaBue said.

The recent CROP Hunger Walk in northwestern Rochester is the latest in a series of activities the Mary’s Place Interact Chapter has organized.  This summer, the club raised $5,000 for Heifer Project International by growing and selling vegetables and flowers, LaBue reported.  The club’s next project: to help clean up Binghamton, N.Y., homes damaged in Hurricane Irene.