Do you have shoes that you want to get rid of? If you’re swapping out the old to have room for the new, consider donating your old styles to Soles4Souls. The American Podiatric Medical Association posted a newsletter from Soles4Souls on its website that caught my attention. This prompted me to do a little research on this organization.
Soles4Souls is a non-profit organization with a simple, yet clear objective: “to procure shoes and get them to those in need by changing the world one pair at a time.
Natural disasters are leaving many parts of the world without shoes when more than 300 million pairs of shoes are clogging up landfills. So far, Soles4Souls has pledged a million new or slightly used pairs of shoes for Haiti. As an organization, they have delivered their ten millionth pair of shoes in over 150 countries! Most of the donations come from shoe companies, retailers, churches, schools, and nonprofit ministries.
Wayne Elsey, founder and CEO of Soles4Souls, has been noted as saying,
“Shoes are vital for health reasons. Viruses such as hookworms are a big cause of death. People also need shoes to feel better. Shoes let kids look forward to running, playing and having fun. Every 15 seconds, a child dies from some disease that can be prevented with proper shoes. We give away a pair every 9 seconds. You need to ask, what is the need out there?”
Soles4Souls urges the average person to organize a shoe drive or create an awareness campaign. Before you throw away your next pair of shoes, think about donating them to a worthy cause. To learn more about the organization, visit their website. (www.soles4souls.org)
What do you do with your old shoes now? Do you donate them or throw them away in the garbage?
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