Roanoke Elementary School recently collected 683 pairs of new and gently used shoes for Changing Footprints. Led by 5th grade teacher Jamilyn PeGan the 441 students reacted enthusiastically at a presentation given in the gymnasium by Cheryl Brockmann of Changing Footprints. Over a two-week period, almost every student contributed to the ever-growing pile of shoes. It was exciting to see the bags pile up more and more every day. Roanoke Elementary has held shoe drives in previous years as well.
All of these donated shoes will be paired and sorted into over 40 categories at the Changing Footprints warehouse in New Haven. The shoes will be placed into banana boxes and labeled. Social service agencies contact Changing Footprints, requesting specific types of shoes, such as “3 boxes of men’s sizes 9-12, athletic”. Changing Footprints often delivers 15-20 boxes at a time to meet the various agencies’ requests. No one is ever charged for the shoes. Recipients include the poor and homeless, shelters, churches and school systems. Well over 90% of all donations stay in Northern Indiana.
Changing Footprints is a 100% volunteer, non-profit organization, without any paid staff. There are 5 main distribution locations in Indiana: Rushville, North Indy, South Indy, Greenfield, and Northern Indiana. Established in 2005, they have distributed over 600,000 pairs in the past 18 years. Locally, the Northern Indiana/Fort Wayne branch collected over 35,000 pairs in 2023. The new and used shoes come from a variety of sources: collection bins at athletic facilities, local libraries, physical therapy offices, shoe stores and churches. Shoe drives by schools, churches, and businesses are essential in the effort to meet the growing demand for gently used shoes.
Changing Footprints accepts all styles, types and sizes of shoes, no matter their condition, or even if they are a single shoe without a mate. Damaged athletic style shoes are ground up into playground surfaces and running tracks by Nike, Zappos and other companies. Donation bins can be found by going to: changingfootprints.org and clicking on the “shoe drops tab”. If your organization wishes to run a shoe drive, please contact Rick Boys at intj25@hotmail.com.
Donate — don’t trash — your unwanted shoes
