A local store doing its part to help out those in Haiti.
Abbott Foot Clinic in Collingwood is collecting shoes to send to the people in need in Haiti.
Tony Abbott says they are asking local businesses and people in town to clean out their closets, find some old shoes they aren’t using, and drop them off either at his business, or at any Beckers Shoes location in Ontario.
Abbott has also teamed up with the group Souls for Soles in the US, which was started in 2004 after the tsunami in Asia.
That group has donated 7.3 million pairs of shoes so far to various countries devastated by natural disasters.
He says they are looking for mainly closed in shoes to protect people’s feet in the rubble in Haiti, but Abbott adds that they also want sandals and flip flops too for when the country has recovered.
Abbott says Haiti is a very poor country, and many of the people there don’t have shoes, but he adds that they are looking for gently used shoes as well.
He says all they have to do is get the donated shoes from Collingwood to either Tennessee or Iowa, and then the Souls for Soles group will sort and clean the shoes, then ship them to Haiti.
Abbott says they have collected about 200 shoes so far, and adds that if people don’t have any shoes to give, they can always donate a dollar or two instead.
The cutoff date for shoe donations is on March 11th, which is when Abbott will send the shoes to help some of the people in Haiti.