Shoe collection will help needy people in other countries
Sacred Heart Parish School students recently collected piles of
gently used or new shoes for their
”
Share Your Soles
”
shoe collection. The students collected the shoes for a
nonprofit organization that sends them all over the world to people
who need them. The shoes ranged from sneakers to dress shoes
– for children and adults. The collection kicked off on
September 8 and concluded on the 12th. More than 300 pairs of shoes
were collected.
Shoe collection will help needy people in other countries
Sacred Heart Parish School students recently collected piles of gently used or new shoes for their “Share Your Soles” shoe collection. The students collected the shoes for a nonprofit organization that sends them all over the world to people who need them. The shoes ranged from sneakers to dress shoes – for children and adults. The collection kicked off on September 8 and concluded on the 12th. More than 300 pairs of shoes were collected.
“The two students that spearheaded this project this year, Cooper Scherr and Tyler Edgerle, were very thorough,” said Marilyn Westphal, the school’s student council moderator.
“A lot more people than we think don’t have shoes,” said Scherr, 11. “We wanted to help those who don’t have appropriate foot wear.”
The shoes were sent to the Share Your Soles Foundation based in Chicago, and from there will be sent to places such as Haiti and Uganda. The shoes may also be distributed within the United States where they are needed after disasters such as hurricanes.
During the shoe collection Sacred Heart also had a competition to see which classes could collect the most shoes. There were two winners. Michelle Stevens’ third-grade class won the competition between the kindergarten through fifth-grade classes. Edgerle and Scherr’s sixth-grade class, with teacher Tracy Young, beat the other classes – sixth through eighth.
“Our reward for collecting the most shoes was a free dress day,” Stevens said.
Students in the two winning classes were allowed to attend school Sept. 3 without their usual school uniforms.
In addition to the shoe collection, Sacred Heart also had an aluminum can and plastic bottle collection to help pay the expense of sending all of the shoes to Chicago, where the foundation is headquartered.
“We mailed 30 boxes of shoes, and took some shoes that were in really bad shape to the Nike recycling place in Gilroy that turns old shoes into shredded rubber for playgrounds,” Westphal said. “This project gave the students something tangible to do to help others less fortunate than they are. The Sacred Heart students involved with this project realize that the shoes we collected and take for granted can have a profound impact on someone else’s life.”
