Philly School Donates Shoes To Non-Profit

by Mike Dougherty

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- More than 6700 pairs of shoes have been gathered by students and staff at a school in Queen Village.

The truck-load is being donated to a non-profit.

Students load trash bags full of shoes assembly line style onto a truck behind Meredith Elementary.

Each bag contains 25 pairs of gently used kicks of all sizes.

"The shoes go overseas for micro-entrepreneurs," says Rebecca Makuen.

She is one of the parent volunteers who helped build this massive pile over the past two months.

"And what they do is they take the shoes, they clean them up, and they sell them. They can earn about $10 to feed their families for a day," Makuen explained.

The haul will be divided among small business owners in Haiti and several poor nations in Asia and Africa through the non-profit Funds2Orgs.

"Because we're so fortunate, we felt it was important to give back, too," said Makuen.

In return, the school receives about $2,000 for supplies.

In:
• Philadelphia