The walk-a-thon, organized by an inmates group with help from Chaplain Rev. Bud Sargent, raised as much as $18,000 for a project in that country supported by Canadian Foodgrains Bank and implementing member agency World Renew. (The pledges are still being tallied at this time.)

Altogether, the inmates, along with 20 outside volunteers, walked 3,694 laps around the prison’s exercise yard for a total of 1,981 kilometres.

Funds were raised through pledges from families and friends of the inmates, and from prison chapel volunteers and from local Christian Reformed churches in Lacombe—Woody Nook, Wolf Creek and Bethel. People across Canada also donated through the Foodgrains Bank Friend-to-Friend Bowden walk-a-thon giving page.

Funds raised by the inmates will be used by World Renew for its project in the Dugda region on Ethiopia, where it is assisting over 41,000 people with support from the Foodgrains Bank.

The money will be matched by the Government of Canada on a 4:1 basis.

“It was an amazing experience,” says volunteer walker Marion Ausmus of Leader, Sask.

“The men were so grateful that so many people cared to be a part of their effort to help others in this way.”

Before the walk Ausmus, who is also a member of the Foodgrains Bank Board, shared about her experiences visiting Ethiopia with the Foodgrains Bank.

“It was exciting to see what God is doing through these men,” she says, adding that the inmates also signed 70 postcards for the Foodgrains Bank’s Good Soil campaign that asks the Canadian government to invest in the needs of small-scale farmers in the developing world.

For Sargent, the prison’s chaplain, it was “win-win-win” for the inmates, for the Foodgrains Bank and World Renew, and for people in Ethiopia.

For the inmates, in particular, “it was a chance for them to make a difference for others who are suffering due to drought, and to show that they care about things beyond the fence—that they aren’t the stereotypical offenders some make them out to be.”

They were “overwhelmed” by the show of support from people outside the prison, he says.

“They couldn’t believe so many people were willing to come alongside and be part of their effort, to believe that they can do something to help others,” he says.

Peter Bulthuis directs church relations for World Renew. For him, what the inmates did was “amazing.”

“When they heard about the needs in Ethiopia, of people who might be dying, they decided to act,” he says. “The inmates don’t know those people, but the message they sent was ‘don’t give up hope!’”

At the same time, he adds, they also “shone a light” that showed that “being inside doesn’t mean only thinking inside. They showed so many people in Alberta and beyond that the prison walls could not contain their concern for others.”

This is the fourth time Bowden inmates have done the walk-a-thon, including last year for Foodgrains Bank member Nazarene Compassionate Ministries. They plan to do another walk-a-thon for the Foodgrains Bank next year.

For more information about the walk-a-thon, please contact:

Photo on this page from the Calgary Herald.