The annual DeKalb CROP Walk, a 10-kilometer walk to fight hunger, took place Sunday in downtown DeKalb.

This year’s event sponsor was DeKalb’s First Congregational United Church of Christ. This is in conjunction with the national event – which is sponsored by the Church World Service – that raises money to fight hunger.

Virginia Noe, one of the planners of the event, said they raised more than $18,000 from the event. Twenty-five percent of the proceeds will go to local organizations such as Hope Haven, the Salvation Army Food Pantry, Meals on Wheels and Safe Passage.

“We didn’t quite get our goal, but it was respectable,” Noe said.

The rest, she said, will go to the relief and development projects of the Church World Service.

The emphasis was on refugees this year. Noe said the publicity for the event focused on helping refugees and highlighted causes for refugees.

Kathleen Clark participated in the event this year and has participated in it during eight of the last 10 years.

“It was great. We had about 20 people from our church,” Clark said. Clark is a member of Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of DeKalb. Her group, comprised of young people and adults from her church, raised between $900 and $1,000.

Clark worked on the organizational committee for the walk for five years, but not this year.

The event blossomed from when people would send food across the United States via trains just after World War II. Clark said it was a national, possibly international, event.

She also helped in the organization of a CROP Walk in Laramie, Wyo., in the late ‘70s.

In the past, NIU student groups usually participate. Clark said this year, they didn’t participate nearly as much.