Members of the First Church of the Open Bible in Cedar Rapids have accomplished an amazing feat. They’ve matched hundreds of shoes and tied them together in pairs to be sent to hurricane victims in Haiti. Steve and Barry’s donated the footwear after the local department store closed.
The shoes arrived unsorted and mismatched. Four hurricanes hit Haiti last year and many people there lost all their possessions. Church members in Cedar Rapids are pairing the thousands of shoes together to ship them to hurricane victims in Haiti. Church member Sonny Friis says the work will help the storm victims.
"Here in the states, we can go buy what we want when we want them. In Haiti, they can’t," Friis said. Dozens of different colors, styles and sizes lie scattered across the room still to be sorted. "It’s exhausting, but we just keep at it until we’re done," Dave Wagner says, and Friis adds, "Sometimes you’ll find a nine, but there’s no nine right shoe or left shoe to fit it. So, you take a nine and a nine-and-a-half." It’s going to take several months to ship all the shoes because there’s just so many of them.
No matter how much time it takes, or how frustrating the job might be, volunteers know their efforts will bring comfort to the souls of people who just need a little support. "Think of a little, a little child just wearing that shoe, you know, I just wish I could be there to see it," Kay Friis says.
Even though the church has thousands of shoes to give away, they don’t have enough children’s sizes, and are taking donations at the church. The address is: 1911 E Avenue Northwest. You can also call the church as well at 319-363-3117.