Hope Teen shoe drive underway

With Christmas coming up, it's likely you'll need some room to put the new shoes you had on your list.
And with the Hope Lutheran Teen Power currently collecting shoes for its annual show drive, this is a great opportunity to go through your closet and donate those new or slightly worn shoes you no longer will be wearing and would eventually end up in a landfill.
The Hope Lutheran Teens are taking steps to collect new or slightly-worn shoes, boots, sandals and all other footwear from now until the end of February 2022.
The group will gather the shoes and deliver them to Schuler Shoes in St. Cloud. The shoes are then paired and sorted at Schuler Shoes and sent to four different places. The newer shoes are donated to shelters and sold for $5 a pair, with the proceeds donated to that shelter's food shelf.
Some of the donated shoes remain in-state in order to be used for a program called "Shoe Away Hunger".
Other shoes are sent to impoverished countries and given to needy families.
The soles of the remaining shoes are shredded and used for playground surfacing of rubber mulch.
The Hope Lutheran Teens have been collecting new or used shoes for several years. It has been a rewarding experience for the group.
It is estimated that approximately 400 million children worldwide, more than the entire population of the United States, live in pronounced poverty. Many of these children will grow up never having had a pair of shoes, resulting in significant ramifications for their health and well-being. Lacking proper footwear, countless children will be unable to attend school. And tens of millions of these barefoot boys and girls will be infected with soil-transmitted parasitic diseases like hookworm, causing lasting suffering and lifelong debilitation.
It's time to start getting rid of those shoes you are no longer using. Bring the bags or boxes of footwear to Hope Lutheran Church.