Track
and Field Athletes Volunteer at Share Your Soles (2/5/08)
Looking for a way to offer a small gesture of kindness,
members of Trinity’s track and field team connected with Share Your Soles, a
local organization that is a perfect example of how a little compassion can go
a long way. The Trinity athletes volunteered a couple of hours on a Saturday to
help fulfill Share Your Soles mission of providing gently worn shoes to those
in greatest need around the world.
Share Your Soles is volunteer-based, non-profit organization
started by Mona Purdy, who saw a need for shoes in an impoverished area of the
world. She acted on that need by collecting children’s shoes from schools and
families in her neighborhood and delivering them to an orphanage in Honduras.
That one-time small gesture developed into an organization that now collects
and distributes shoes to children and adults all over the world.
Before distributing the shoes Share Your Soles makes sure
that every pair that goes out is clean and in good condition. That process
involves matching, washing, sorting, and then shipping every pair of the
thousands of donated shoes that come into the warehouse in Alsip, Illinois.
The work to be done depends on volunteer help, and that
is where 21 members of the track and field team were able to contribute. Some
of the team members worked on sorting and matching shoes while others helped in
preparing the shoes for cleaning by bagging and loading them into vans so that
they could be taken to a laundry mat for washing.
“We worked for two hours and made good progress,” said Coach
Jeff Raymond. “It was nice to be able to help out and to be a part of this
process. There is so much more that can be done as we only made a small dent in
the overwhelming number of shoes in the warehouse.”
In addition to volunteering their time and labor, the
athletes also presented Share Your Soles with $200 in quarters for use at the
laundry mat. That money was raised through donations at a recent Trinity
athletic event.
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