A group of High School students is supporting the charity Sal’s Shoes. This is a simple charity with a simple plan: they distribute outgrown children’s shoes to little feet that need them. When they started collecting four years ago, they distributed over 4800 pairs of shoes to eight countries. By the end of 2017, they had distributed over 500,000 pairs to children in 26 countries!
According to Sal’s Shoes, there are an estimated 300 million children in the world without shoes. These children are extremely vulnerable to infection by parasites such as hookworm. Unnecessary injuries to feet and ankles can lead to ulcers and other conditions which are often left untreated. Without shoes, many children are not allowed to go to school.
As this is the first time we have been involved with Sal’s Shoes, we will sort and pack them at the FIS and then deliver them to a depot near Frankfurt who will then forward them to Sal’s Shoes in the UK. In the future, we would like to be able to ship directly from Erlangen to cut down on transport costs but this is not possible at this time. The FIS Sal’s Shoes group raised a small amount of money at the Christmas Fair which will be used to buy supplies for packing the shoes.
How can you help?
- Bring your clean, outgrown children’s shoes to the Reception and put them in the boxes provided. We can accept all types of shoes and boots so long as they are not outworn or dirty
- Trainers
- Sandals (including Crocs, flip-flops and open shoes)
- Summer shoes
- Winter shoes (including snow boots and wellingtons)
- Football boots
- Slippers and Hausschuhe
- Canvas shoes (e.g. Converse)
- Party shoes (e.g. glittery shoes, strappy shoes and totally impractical but gorgeous shoes!)
- Tie the shoes together by their laces or use an elastic band so that the pairs are not separated. We will have spare elastic bands for you at the Reception if you forget!
- Please tape 2 EUR to each pair. This is very important because as a small charity Sal’s Shoes’ only real limitation is financial. Some of your shoes will travel up to 16,000 kilometers to find their new feet and this journey costs money. We have to ensure we have the funds available to pass on the preloved shoes you so generously send.
For our very first collection, we have a deadline of just two weeks, so please bring any shoes you wish to donate to school by Friday, April 20. If you would like more information about Sal’s Shoes, please contact us at .
Have a great Spring Break!
Charles, Julian, Akhil, Sanjana, Sanat, Alborz and Aryan
Grade 9 and 11 students
