Volunteers help with final push for shoe drive for Cedar Rapids free clinic
His Hands Free Clinic collected 24,000 pairs of shoes in June
Don Painter (right) hands a bag of donated shoes to Danny Maurer as volunteers move bags of donated shoes bucket brigade style from a storage room to the curb Friday at Westminster Presbyterian Church in southeast Cedar Rapids. Eight hundred and sixty-eight bags containing 21,700 pairs of shoes were loaded onto a semi-trailer to be driven to Orlando, Florida, to be shipped to those in need in developing countries. (Jim Slosiarek/The Gazette)
CEDAR RAPIDS – How do you load more than 21,000 pairs of shoes into a semi-trailer? One bag at a time.
That’s what volunteers did Friday at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Cedar Rapids. They formed a “bucket brigade” and transported 868 bags containing 21,700 pairs of shoes donated to benefit His Hands Free Clinic in Cedar Rapids, which provides free treatment to people without health insurance.
The shoes were collected during a drive in June. His Hands Free Clinic receives money based on the total weight of the pairs of shoes donated.
A total of 24,127 pairs of shoes were donated, the clinic announced last month.
Kennedy football player Keegan Mastin (right), 16, hands a bag of donated shoes to teammate Vinny Gianforte, also 16, as volunteers bring bags of donated shoes from a storage room to the bucket brigade at Westminster Presbyterian Church in southeast Cedar Rapids on Friday. Eight hundred and sixty-eight bags containing 21,700 pairs were loaded onto a semi-trailer to be driven to Orlando, Florida, to be shipped to those in need in developing countries. The shoe drive was an event to benefit His Hands Free Clinic. (Jim Slosiarek/The Gazette)
Although the clinic did not achieve its goal of setting a new world record for the most shoes collected in one week (250,001), it did collect more shoes than in larger cities where similar campaigns were carried out.
The shoes, which were loaded onto a truck on Friday, will be taken to Orlando, Florida, and from there shipped around the world by Funds2Orgs, an organization that works with small businesses in developing countries to provide them with goods to sell.
In addition to the shoes being shipped, the His Hands Free Clinic drive provided 500 pairs of shoes to Willis Dady Works, Mission of Hope, Catherine McAuley Center, St. Vincent de Paul, Metro Catholic Outreach and residents of the flooded Rock Valley area.
“I would like to thank all the volunteers who helped collect and sort the shoes and the businesses that had boxes at their locations,” said Dawn Brouwers, Development Manager at His Hands Free Clinic. “Without their help, we would never have collected and processed so many shoes. I estimate that this project worked thanks to 500 volunteer hours from 75 different volunteers.”
His Hands Free Clinic, founded in 1992, serves the “physical, emotional and spiritual needs of those who lack the means.” Services provided by this nonprofit clinic include: medical care, dental care, chiropractic care, women’s health, physical therapy, durable medical equipment, pastoral care, patient advocacy/social work, prescription assistance and outside optometrist.
