Hunger Walk/Run a casualty of snow

The silver anniversary of the Hunger Walk/Run will be remembered most for what didn’t happen: the actual Walk/Run.

Organizers canceled the 10k event through downtown Atlanta for the first time in its 25 years because of Sunday’s snowfall.

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Joey Ivansco/jivansco@ajc.com

David Ploski, of Midtown, showed up for the 25th Atlanta Hunger Run/Walk at Turner Field’s Blue Lot with girlfriend Renee Wright (far left) only to find out the event was canceled because of the weather. Also pictured Todd Warren is visiting from Buffalo, N.Y.

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“This year may be making up for all of those good times” when weather wasn’t a problem, said Bill Bolling, founder and executive director of the Atlanta Community Food Bank, one of a number of organizations that relied on the Walk/Run to raise money to help feed the hungry.

Bolling said there was no make-up date planned because of the time and effort to get a permit from the city of Atlanta and to organize the event.

Last year’s Walk/Run raised about $300,000.

Bolling said organizers should know how much was raised through pledges collected before this year’s run by mid-week. Additional monies would have come from people registering the day of the event.

Although much of the money had been raised through the food bank’s Web site, every dollar counts, particularly as charitable giving has declined during the ongoing recession.

“We have more need now than ever,” said Joe Beasley, a deacon at Antioch Baptist Church North in Atlanta, which receives help from the food bank to serve the needy.

Bolling’s organization distributes food to about 800 non-profit agencies in metro Atlanta and north Georgia.

“All of them are strained,” Bolling said. “All of them are feeling much more of a demand.”

Some organizations are going back to basics.

Sarah Hamphrey, director of the Decatur-based Presbyterian Answer To Hunger, said the group will focus more on helping agencies that assist the needy and less on assisting food cooperatives.

“People are giving less because of the economy, but the need is still there,” she said.

Beasley pressed banks — particularly those that have received help from the federal government — to work with members who are in danger of losing their homes to foreclosure. Beasley said giving to churches is down — money that is used to help the needy.

In the meantime, the church recently held a retreat to discuss to belt-tightening, Beasley said, to “try to weather the storm.”