Tornado Rips through Warehouse, Provides 180,000 Shoes for Orphans

SAN ANGELO, Texas, May 13 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Alan Wilson of Templeton Construction didn't like the idea of destroying new shoes. So when he was tasked with taking shoes out of the tornado-wrecked R.G. Barry Corporation distribution center to the city dump, he became the first in a series of heroes to help bring 180,000 pairs of Shoes for Orphan Souls to needy children.

Due to insurance regulations, the shoes were declared unavailable for sale or in-country distribution. So when Wilson was asked to toss the undamaged shoes, he decided to seek out charity organizations instead. He ended up at the San Angelo military base, where he met Carmen Nila, a member of PaulAnn Baptist Church in San Angelo.

Nila knew about the previous year's shoe drive at her church and got Wilson in contact with PaulAnn, he said.

"If Alan Wilson hadn't made contact with Carmen Nila, and if PaulAnn Baptist Church hadn't done a shoe drive the year before, and if the tornado never even hit... well then we wouldn't be here today," said Rachel Garton, director of Shoes for Orphan Souls. "There are a lot of heroes in this story. A lot of people came together to make this donation happen. And a lot of kids will benefit because of it."

Greg Tunney, president and chief executive officer at R.G. Barry Corporation, said they regularly work with footwear-based charities including Soles for Souls and the Two Ten Foundation.

"But the aftermath of the San Angelo tornado was an unusual situation," Tunney said. "Our insurance called for all products damaged in the tornado to be destroyed to prevent possible resale.

"Fortunately, they agreed to let us to donate these shoes and slippers to the Shoes for Orphan Souls organization rather than sending them to the landfill. We could not be happier."

Samantha Batten, 26, called the R.G. Barry donation a "God thing."

Batten, a member of PaulAnn Baptist Church, hosted a Shoes for Orphan Souls drive with her friend Kirby Winchester in 2007.

They made fliers, called radio stations, talked to the city newspaper, spoke from PaulAnn, designed posters, went on air in their local TV station and contacted just about everyone they knew. They collected 300 pairs, a good number for the city's 88,000 population.

So when Garton told Batten that up to 10,000 shoes were going to be donated (she wasn't aware that the actual number was more than 10 times that amount), Batten cried.

"Are you joking?" she asked.

No. Garton wasn't joking. But she was smiling. Broadly.

"It's amazing how God can take something bad and make something good out of it," she said.

Shoes for Orphan Souls reaches children who might otherwise go barefoot in cold weather or on rough land. It takes shoes to children who can't afford a new pair and it takes them to orphans who often don't own anything besides what they wear on their feet.

About 30-40 volunteers from PaulAnn sorted and boxed shoes May 1 in the shade-free lot behind the R.G. Barry warehouse. Wal-Mart donated the use of their 18-wheelers to transport the shoes to the Buckner Center for Humanitarian Aid in Dallas. Although not all the shoes have been transported yet, 15 trucks of 53 feet in length are expected to be used.

The volunteers downed bottles of water in minutes and their faces reddened as PaulAnn Lead Pastor Kirt Dauphin reminded them of a simple truth.

"Just remember, each time you toss a box into that truck, you're putting shoes on the feet of an orphan," he said.

Kelsy Emmons, 20, pulled a blond strand of hair off her face and said she came to help because one of her friends is a member of PaulAnn and called her about the need for volunteers.

"I came out because I saw an opportunity to serve and that's what Christ would do," Emmons said. "I called in to work and said I'd be late."

"It has been remarkable to watch God bring these shoes to Buckner," said Ken Hall, president of Buckner International. "The people of San Angelo really came together on behalf of the children who will receive these shoes. Buckner is so grateful to R.G. Barry for allowing us to distribute the shoes. And we could have never done this without the work of the members of PaulAnn Baptist Church and Wal-Mart."

Hall said the blessing of receiving so many shoes also comes with the responsibility to distribute them.

"We're definitely going to need financial support for additional storage and shipping expenses," Hall said.

Although the number of shoes collected in San Angelo was unprecedented, Garton emphasized that there is still a great need for people to host shoe drives and donate shoes.

"The shoes we received from R.G. Barry Corporation are mostly slippers and house shoes," she said. "They will be a huge blessing to children in different parts of the world, especially in the colder countries. But there is still a need for sneakers and shoes that protect the children's feet."

For more information about Shoes for Orphan Souls, visit the Web site at www.ShoesforOrphanSouls.org or call 1-866-774-SHOE.

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Source: Shoes for Orphan Souls

CONTACT: Rachel Garton of Shoes for Orphan Souls, +1-469-877-4517,
rgarton@buckner.org

Web Site: http://www.shoesfororphansouls.org/

2008-05-13 18:34:17 0360876 PRNEWSWIRE