How many pairs of shoes are in your closet? 8? 4? 22? More?
When's the last time you counted? When's the last time you even cared? Personally I counted just for this blog post. I have 20. 20 pairs of SHOES!
We just want more shoes, Right?
It doesn't matter how many we have, we just love them.
We want sandals and flip flops in the summer. Booties and sneakers in the fall. Boots and Galoshes in the winter. Anything and everything in the spring since who knows what the weather will do?
Sometimes we buy shoes just because they go with a specific outfit. ONE OUTFIT. Have you done this? I have.
About a year ago in Church a wonderful sister stood up and gave a lesson on something to do with Charity (sorry! it wasn't the lesson I remembered it was this story, stay with me) as she gave the lesson she illustrated a particular point by talking about her experience in our county with Homeless Children. She gave a bunch of statistics and talked about how she was always trying to raise funds to buy these homeless kids in our area shoes. SHOES. Something I have plenty of. As a matter of fact, I have plenty of almost everything compared to these kids. What she said touched me. It stayed with me. I have thought of it often. When we opened the boutique last March an idea occurred to me. We have discussed it as business partners. We discussed it with the amazing sister at my church and now that school is back in session we are gonna do something about it.
When most of us think about homeless people, we think about adults. We think about them wandering the street, filling up shelters, camping in parks or in the mountains. But somehow we seem to forget the children. Children who love their parents, Children who need their families, they also need an education, to help with their siblings, to help their families survive. These kids are amazing!
In Iron County Utah there are 400 homeless children between the ages of 6-18. That's School age. That's 400 kids who didn't have money for back to school supplies, let alone clothes and shoes. They didn't show up at school on the first day with a pink glitter pencil box, a new backpack and Oreo's in their lunch box. They came with what they already had. Sometimes that is the clothes on their backs. Sometimes those clothes wear out before they can get more clothes. Sometimes it's their shoes. WE CAN HELP! YOU CAN HELP!
Last year in Iron County my friend Diane Janes helped gather and donate 150 pairs of shoes for these kids in need. Over half of those went towards High School aged kids. The rest went to the middle schools, Elementary kids and a few went to our Local Head-start preschool. She purchased these shoes by raising money herself. She's pretty darn amazing right?
Here at Everyday Eden Boutique we wanna help. We want kids to be kids. We wanna help take one worry of the plate of these amazing kids. We wanna help get them shoes.
So, here's the deal. Until the end of September we are doing a SHOE DRIVE for the Iron County School District here in Southern Utah.
10% of all Sales from Everyday Eden Boutique will go towards buying shoes for the Homeless Kids in Iron County Utah that need shoes.
If you would like, you can donate directly to the fund and all that money will go towards buying shoes for homeless kids in Iron County.
You can donate directly by using Venmo or Paypal us at Everyday Eden Boutique and we will account for those funds and make sure they go towards the shoe drive. (Please make a note when you donate that says SHOE DRIVE)
Our Venmo account is @Everyday-Eden
Our Paypal account is everydayedenboutique@gmail.com
We will also work with Diane Janes and our school districts Homeless Liason to order and purchase shoes at wholesale prices for these children. We will do another shoe drive later in the school year and meet more needs later.
Don't worry if you don't have a lot to give. A little can go a long way. $5 contributes a lot when your buying shoes.
Lets help kids be kids. These ones have enough to worry about.
Please share this post and help us get the word out.