Between eight and 15 Harvard students and 4000 others walked yesterday in the 14th annual Walk for Hunger.

The 20-mile event raised a record $400,000 in pledges for groups fighting local and world hunger.

The Phillips Brooks House Committee for the Homeless collected $150 in House dining halls for the campaign, publicized the event, and distributed sponsor sheets to Harvard students, committee co-chairman Richard W. Painter '84 said yesterday.

"It's embarrassing that more Harvard students weren't in it," said Jennifer M. Bryant '86, who walked the 20 miles and collected $67 in pledges. "It's a visible demonstration of support, saying that people support these feeding groups," she added.

Others, such as fourth-time walker Kathryn Nunnelly, said that they did not collect pledges. "I don't get into sponsors, I walk for the morale," said Nunnelly, who wore a clown suit and distributed "clown kiss" stickers as she walked along Memorial Drive.

Daniel P. Daley, executive director of Project Bread, a Boston humanitarian group that sponsored the walk, emphasized last week that this year's support was particularly crucial. Boston is typical of large American cities, with 40 percent of the population under the federal poverty level, he said.

This year's donations will be divided among 55 food distribution organizations, according to a Project Bread pamphlet Seventy-nine percent of the money will go to local groups, including a Cambridge organization, Shelter Inc., which feeds more than 100 people daily and houses 20 nightly.

A myriad of international organizations will split 10 percent of the collected pledges Included among these are Church World Service Crop, a group working to improve agriculture productivity in India and Thailand, and Oxfam-America, which provides food, clothing and shelter to the displaced in El Salvador.

The remaining 11 percent will cover administrative costs for Project Bread.