St. Paul's Evangelical Church Jamestown School Team Up To Collect Shoes to Save Lives

April 12, 2011 at 12:14 p.m. | Updated April 12, 2011 at 12:14 p.m.

St. Paul's Evangelical Church, Jamestown, member Connie Souden, Jamestown C-I School NHS Sponsor Brenda Selby and FFA Advisor Ben Marshall pose with members of the Jamestown NHS and FFA and the pile of shoes they collected for the Shoeman Project.
St. Paul's Evangelical Church, Jamestown, member Connie Souden, Jamestown C-I School NHS Sponsor Brenda Selby and FFA Advisor Ben Marshall pose with members of the Jamestown NHS and FFA and the pile of shoes they collected for the Shoeman Project.

St. Paul's Evangelical Church, Jamestown, and students at Jamestown C-I School collected over 1,000 pairs of shoes for the Shoeman Project. The Shoeman project collects shoes and gives them a second life by selling them to exporters for resale in developing countries. The shoes protect the owners from parasites and infections. Then with the money collected from the sales of the shoes well-drilling rigs, water filtration systems and other supplies are purchased to bring clean, fresh water to those in need.

Connie Souden, a member at St. Paul's, helped coordinate the shoe collection and said she heard about the project while listening to Bott Radio.

"I kept hearing about the Shoeman," Souden said, "and what he was doing in Kenya and Haiti. I thought about how I have a lot of shoes and I was sure I was not the only one in the area. It was something I felt we could do and would not cost us anything, yet it would benefit a lot of people."

For more of this story check out the April 13 issue of the California Democrat.