The Soles4Souls RV stopped at the Jellystone Park campground in Caledonia , Wisconsin over the weekend as part of their summer tour. The team from Soles4Souls is traveling the country in an RV to collect shoe donations and raise awareness of their mission: To impact as many lives as possible with the gift of shoes.
The Soles4Souls blog says: It started out like any stop at a campground with the Soles4Souls RV. We registered with Bridgett at the Caladonia Jellystone Park and drove to site #23. By the time we got out of the car, a small crowd had gathered and began asking questions about Soles4Souls. Suddenly kids were running back to their RV’s and bringing back shoes. One kind man offered to go to each RV site and ask people to donate shoes. A few other adults also gave us shoes. Jellystone Park campers are amazing! If you’ve never been to a Yogi Bear campground, give them a try.
For more information about how you can support Soles4Soles, visit their website: www.soles4souls.org
The Soles4Souls Story
In the aftermath of the 2004 tsunami that hit Southeast Asia, Wayne Elsey, the Founder and CEO of Soles4Souls™ Inc., felt compelled to do something. Like many of us, he did not know what to do.
He was at home one night, watching TV and he saw a picture of a single shoe washing up on the beach. That triggered a few calls to some other executives in the footwear industry and the subsequent donation of a quarter of a million shoes to victims in the devastated countries.
A year later when Katrina hit, Wayne called the same group of friends, and they sent over a million pairs of shoes down to the gulf coast communities affected by the hurricane. In all honesty, he admits that he did not expect such an immediate and successful turnout. This left him wondering, why not start a non-profit and do this all the time? One year later, Soles4Souls was formally created.
Now Soles4Souls receives large donations from footwear companies, retailers, churches, nonprofit ministries, civic groups, schools, and individuals and saw that this could become a full time organization. That’s why Soles4Souls was created – to facilitate the donations from these groups to the people who desperately need footwear.
