Soles for Souls

Americans are shoe-crazy: We go through so many that stores import eight pairs for every man, woman and child in the country each year. By comparison, the average in Mexico is three pairs of shoes per person, and an unfortunately large number of people there have none at all.


Finding shoes for the unshod is a task that first electrified Wayne Elsey, founder and CEO of Soles 4 Souls, during the 2004 tsunami, which destroyed villages and lives across Southeast Asia. From his position as an executive in the shoe industry, he coordinated an effort to ship hundreds of thousands of shoes to those who lost their belongings. In 2005, Elsey did the same in New Orleans, Mississippi and Alabama after Hurricane Katrina, and shortly thereafter, in 2006, he founded Soles 4 Souls to transform an ad hoc effort into an institution. All told, the nonprofit has distributed 3.6 million pairs of used and new shoes, donated by average citizens and shoe companies alike, to people in 61 countries.
Taken from greenguide.com Feb. 2009