Like so many people Andy Patton never thought twice about throwing out his old or unwanted shoes. “If I had a pair of shoes that were no longer in style or if I didn’t like the color anymore, I’d just toss them,” Patton tells Tonic.
That is, until he read an article last year about a 12-year-old boy from Colorado who started collecting shoes for kids in Africa. “This boy was making numerous trips to Africa with his dad, who was doing humanitarian work there,” says Patton, the Children’s Ministry Director at New Life Church and the Assistant Athletic Director at Christian Heritage School, which are both in Trumbull, Conn.
“He would play soccer with the local boys and realized that he was the only one who had sneakers,” says Patton, 41. “So when he went back home, he began to collect used sneakers for his friends in Africa so they would have shoes to wear. I thought, if this 12-year-old boy could collect shoes for people who don’t have them, then so could I. My dad always said, ‘If you have a solution to a problem, then do something about it. If you don’t do something, then shame on you.’ Those words stuck with me my whole life. I had to do something.”
And he did. Late last year, Patton came up with the idea for Share-A-Pair, which collects used and new shoes for adults and children alike. He and a team of volunteers clean and sanitize each pair, put a rubber band around them and send them all over the country and around the world to people who need them. So far, he has collected more than 15,000 pairs of shoes. He has shipped 500 pairs of shoes to El Salvador, 500 pairs to the Dominican Republic and is getting ready to send a large shipment to Haiti.
His goal? “We want to give away 1 million pairs of shoes by the end of the year,” he says.
Three-Hundred Million Go Shoeless
Patton says he was blown away when he found out just how many people don’t have a pair of shoes to call their own. “When I came up with the idea, I researched it and found out that there are 300 million kids all over the world who don’t have shoes,” he says. “Some kids have never owned a pair of shoes in their lives. Then I learned that in America, we throw away 300 million pairs of shoes a year. To me, it was a no-brainer. I’ve been working with children my whole life. I’m a children’s pastor and run a children’s camp with my wife, Lorna, every summer. This is just an extension of what I do. I’m helping children around the corner and children all over the world.”
He was planning to launch the program this month or in March. “Then the earthquake hit in Haiti and I realized that I couldn’t wait,” he says. “I thought, I certainly can do my part to help the people in Haiti by donating shoes.”
When Patton was figuring out where to send the shoes, he reached out to people he knew who were working with humanitarian organizations in El Salvador, Venezuela, Haiti, Africa and the Dominican Republic. “I asked a missionary I know in Africa if he could use some shoes I had collected. He said, ‘Absolutely. We could use sneakers or flip flops. So many kids don’t have shoes.’
“He told me that children in the area where he works regularly walk up to five miles each way every day in bare feet to get a five-gallon bucket of water for their families. I heard about one little girl in Africa who cuts soda bottles in half and ties them to her feet with string to protect her from the rough terrain and disease.”
“He said to me, ‘Take off your shoes and walk five miles and back and you will see how difficult that is. Now picture yourself walking five miles back while carrying a five-gallon bucket of water. You can imagine what kind of difference it would make for these children to have shoes.’”
One of his contacts in El Salvador told him that children cannot go to school unless they have shoes. “He told me about one family who has three boys, who are roughly the same age and can wear the same pair of shoes,” says Patton. “Since they only have one pair of shoes for the boys, one boy will go to school on Monday, the second will go to school on Tuesday and so forth. That is heartbreaking. He said to me, ‘Two pairs of shoes would allow all three boys to go to school every day.’ I thought, ‘Man, that’s just two pairs of shoes.’ I never realized how one pair of shoes could change a person’s life.”
While his budding charity has run into some roadblocks, such as dealing with the massive inventory he has collected and finding ways to ship them to those who need them, Patton just shrugs off the challenge. “My folks always taught me that if I came up against a roadblock, just work around it,” he says. “I’m not going to give up on this project. The possibility to change people’s lives is just too great. Our motto is, ‘Providing soles for feet today to impact souls forever.”
Here’s how people can help, according to Share-A-Pair.com:
- Make a contribution: Making a 100% deductible donation is still the best way to support to the work.
- Collect supplies: Any size, any color, any brand … New or old it matters not. They also collect shipping and packing supplies. Please visit NewLifeCT.com to see how you can help.
- Volunteer: If you would like to volunteer to host a “Spare-A-Pair” event at your school, church, store or company call 203-261-2728.
- Ship the shoes: If you live in Connecticut, you can drop them off at New Life Christian Fellowship, 28 Hedgehog Road, Trumbull, CT 06611. If you are outside of Connecticut, you can simply box them up and send New Life Christian Fellowship.
- Get the word out: Share-A-Pair needs help getting the message out to friends, neighbors and anyone else who has a spare pair of shoes they could use to send out to someone in need. You can add a banner to your Facebook or MySpace pages, website or blog.
Patton also welcomes people to come with him to deliver the shoes to those who need them. “You can come along as we take shoes to villages in Africa or the jungle of South America, or a small town in Appalachia, here in America,” he says. “Volunteer positions are always available for our upcoming Drop Stops. Come with us and see how your donation foots the bill for children in need.”
Photo of kids receiving donated shoes in the Dominican Republic by Matt Love
Photo of Patton and his wife, Lorna, courtesy Andy Patton