1,600 Walk to Raise Money for Hungry People : Poverty: Coordinators estimate that seven hikes raised close to the $109,000 collected last year. One-quarter of the money will be used locally.

It was something his high school history teacher said that prompted 15-year-old Jonathan Buxton to do something Sunday to ease world hunger.

“The majority of the world has to walk an average of six miles to get food every day,” the Moorpark resident said. “We just have to ride to the grocery store.”

So Jonathan, along with his parents and more than 1,600 other Ventura County residents, walked the same distance Sunday afternoon to raise money to feed the hungry.

From Ojai to Thousand Oaks, seven walks were held in the county. Participants said they were urged by their churches, schools, service clubs or just their own consciences.

Many Moorpark residents said they were motivated to join the walk because some of the money will help their neighbors. As in about 1,700 such walks held nationwide each year, one-quarter of the money that is raised will go to local food pantries.

The rest will be sent to Church World Service and other international relief organizations, said Jeanine Faria, coordinator of food ministries for Project Understanding, a Ventura-based program for the homeless. Project Understanding coordinates the Ventura County walks.

Faria and others estimated that the walks raised close to the $109,000 collected last year. Of the $10,949.10 in pledges raised in the Moorpark walk, more than $2,500 will go to a Moorpark food pantry operated by a Catholic agency.

Pantry director Ruben Castro said it is needed. The number of families who depend on the pantry for food has increased by about 50% during the past six months, Castro said. About 300 families now get a monthly stipend of at least one large shopping bag full of canned goods, pasta and beans.

“This is the worst I’ve seen” in the seven years that he has worked at the agency, Castro said.

Ellen Quarnstrom, 80, one of the oldest participants in the Moorpark walk, said she wishes even more of the money stayed in the city.

“If it goes overseas or goes away from home, you don’t know what happens to it,” Quarnstrom said.

Kathy Cooper, who is six months pregnant, joined the Moorpark walk after hearing about it through her sister’s church.

“My baby may hate me when I’m finished,” Cooper said. But, she added, “in this day and age, when everybody’s a step away from being without a home, it’s real close to me. I’m real afraid of being hungry.”

Cooper said she raised pledges of $150 from her fellow employees at an Oxnard auto dealership, including her boss, who pledged $2 for each mile she walked.

One of the event’s organizers, Walt Dilg, a Methodist pastor from Moorpark, estimated that most of the 410 participants in the walk there raised pledges of between $20 and $100 each.

Dilg launched the Moorpark walk for hunger when he came to the city four years ago. The walks, called CROP walks after the defunct Christian Rural Overseas Programs that started them in the United States, have been held in other Ventura County cities since 1977, Faria said.

Not everyone who participated in the Moorpark event actually walked. Several children bicycled. Many adults ran or jogged. And Dilg and his son Stuart were among dozens of roller skaters.

“Our hearts are in the right place, but we thought it would be a little more fun,” Dilg said.