Katie Fennie is pictured with her parents, Ellen and Gary Fennie, and dogs Carson and Gracie. Katie and her St. Pius X Parish team recently raised over $8,000 for Greensboro’s annual CROP Hunger Walk. (Photo provided by Ellen Fennie)GREENSBORO — “Push my CROP Walk button,” says Katie Fennie. Envisioning an imaginary button in the middle of her back, Katie grasps the idea of helping others when she is walking 3.1 miles for CROP Hunger Walk each year, says her mom Ellen.
The CROP Hunger Walk is a nationwide movement sponsored by Church World Service to raise funds to end hunger and poverty in the U.S. and around the world.
Ellen and Gary Fennie began teaching their three daughters about homelessness and food insecurities long ago. “We used to line our garage with tables to sort and bag food for Backpack Beginnings,” says Fennie, who also coordinates the Thanksgiving food drive each year at St. Pius X Parish. “We’ve always been involved in feeding those who have less… And CROP Walk has been a huge endeavor for our family.”
“Katie is globally developmentally delayed,” explains Fennie. “She has cerebral palsy and is on the autism spectrum.” But this does not stop Team Katie.
She thrives on being involved in the community, she loves her church and she loves animals – so much so that Katie’s dogs even join her for the CROP Walk each year. “It’s really important that Katie’s dogs go with us. Without her dogs, this may not happen. Carson and Gracie even have their own CROP Walk T-shirts,” Fennie says.
“I think people look and say, ‘Gosh, if someone like Katie, who struggles to walk because of her cerebral palsy, can get up and walk for hunger, even while wearing braces on her feet and legs, we are going to support her 100 percent.’”
Because of the pandemic, this year’s CROP Walk was not a large group event, so Team Katie created their own route through the neighborhood around St. Pius X Church. Despite COVID-19, “support for Katie from our parish just bloomed,” Fennie says. With an initial goal of $3,000, Katie raised over $8,400 out of the parish team’s total of $8,900.
“Greensboro Urban Ministry is our longest standing community partner at St. Pius X,” says former pastoral associate Carolyn Painley. “Working with GUM is truly living out our mission to know, love and serve the Lord. Katie Fennie certainly lives out this mission every year as the face and feet of CROP Walk for St. Pius X.”
Greensboro Urban Ministry serves the community through Weaver House, a year-round homeless shelter; Pathways Center for temporary housing; Partnership Village for families “resettling” after homelessness; Potter’s House Community Kitchen; and a food pantry that provides emergency groceries, explains Christine Ringuette, marketing director for GUM. Before the pandemic hit, the food pantry distributed 1.4 million pounds of food in 2019 to 22,454 households and 42,725 people. Besides canned and boxed food items, each household receives fresh produce, meat, bread, dessert and pre-made meals.
While 75 percent of CROP funds go to Church World Service, 25 percent supports GUM food programs like Potter’s House Community Kitchen, which serves 210,000 hot meals annually, 365 days a year, says Ringuette. Since 1981, Greensboro’s CROP Walk has raised almost $6 million.
“St. Pius has a long history of supporting this community effort to stomp out hunger and has received recognition as one of CROP Walk’s largest contributors in the nation,” says Monsignor Anthony Marcaccio, pastor of St. Pius X. “How pleased I am to see our parish come out of the gate of this pandemic and all of its precautions with Katie in the lead. I spoke to Ellen, Katie’s mom, as they were making the turn into the homestretch of fundraising, about putting Katie’s effort on our parish social media platform. As soon as we did, even more donations poured in.
“The race to raise funds was neck and neck with stiff competition for our special CROP Walker, and while Katie placed well, the real winner is always the poor and hungry.”
— Georgianna Penn, Correspondent