Dozens of pairs of shoes sit in my garage. Sneakers, hiking boots, sandals, even a pair of those horrific Crocs.
They’re either too small, supposedly outdated or just plain ole forgotten about. And they never get trotted out for a spin.
Last month, AJC reporter Jeffry Scott wrote a story about neverenoughshoes.org, a nonprofit founded by Sandi Smith of Cumming.
She started the venture after she’d traveled to Haiti as part of the South Forsyth Rotary Club’s international service project.
There, she met Woody, a teen who told her one day that he had no shoes and asked if she’d help him get a pair. A cause was born. She and a “sole sister,” co-founder Anita Whited, have been collecting shoes for Haitians ever since.
Jerry Robb, president of the Duluth Civitan Club, read Scott’s story and got his civic group involved as promoters of the cause. Then Duluth City Administrator Phil McLemore and Mayor Nancy Harris — both Civitan members — got the community involved.
Emails were sent to residents and city employees; collection bins were set up at City Hall on Main Street and the maintenance department on Chattahoochee Drive. Shoes are pouring in.
Google “Haiti and shoes” and you’ll likely to come across a few postings in which the authors spit on the idea, call it fruitless. Bet you a pair of Chuck Taylors these “pundits” had shoes on their feet as they typed away.
Pastor Jean Leroy Dupervil has seen plenty of bare feet in Haiti. The Gwinnett minister has made four trips to his homeland on fact-finding missions and to deliver assistance since the 2010 earthquake.
“Amen,” he said after learning about Never Enough Shoes and how the nonprofit’s charity had spread to one Gwinnett community. He discounted the naysayers.
“The people do need shoes, and right now I am looking for shoes,” he said. “ I just sent two cases two months ago to Miragone, my hometown, but it wasn’t enough.”
This shoe-collecting thing may have wings. Smith, the nonprofit co-founder, will be the Civitan’s guest speaker on April 5 at Parc at Duluth, a retirement community on Peachtree Industrial Boulevard that’s set up a shoe collection bin of its own.
She’s also been contacted to address the Duluth Rotary and Kiwanis clubs about her project. (For the record, she and her husband, David Smith, were involved in Haiti long before the earthquake hit.)
Now, about those shoes. All types of shoes, save for boots and winter shoes, are needed for Haitian adults, teens and children, especially children.
If you donate, please give them a shine or scrub and secure each pair with a rubber band or tape and put the shoe size on each pair. Never Enough Shoes asks for a $1 a pair to offset shipping costs. You can get the skinny on drop-offs, collections and other info at neverenoughshoes.org.
“This is going to be a year-round promotion,” Robb told me. “Not a one-time thing.”
First Haiti, then perhaps, other countries with too many bare feet.
Rick Badie, an Opinion columnist, is based in Gwinnett. Reach him at rbadie@ajc.com or 770-263-3875.
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