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Alverno Service Project Puts Shoes on Kids’ Feet

Members of Alverno High School ’s Campus Ministry class pose with a few of the 600 pairs of shoes collected for needy people in Mexico.

As one of their final service projects of the school year, Alverno High School students delivered more than 600 pairs of used shoes and more than a hundred pairs of new socks to Corazón for barefoot children in Mexico.

In May, Alverno students built a house for a needy Mexican family in one day. Campus minister Chris McGuiness says that during a class discussion many students were struck by how most of the children did not have decent—or any--shoes to wear. “With that in mind, we launched our first “old shoes/new socks” drive asking students to bring in lightly used tennis shoes to be delivered to children in the poorest neighborhoods in Mexico,” says McGuiness. “We all have closets full of clothing and shoes that we no longer need or wear, and it was a wonderful way to look at our own lives and share part of that with those who need it.” The cartons of shoes and socks have been delivered to the Corazón organization for kids in the neighborhoods the group serves.

Alverno’s 282 girls regularly perform more than 1,600 hours of community service a year. This year, the school created the Alverno Lifetime Service Award, which awarded gold tassels to graduates who had given more than 420 hours of service to others during their high school years. Eleven members of the Class of 2008 earned gold tassels.

The “old shoes/new socks” drive was such a success that McGuiness says it will become a regular school-wide service project. “The girls were moved by the sight of those barefoot children and they came up with a way to help. We are proud of them and their desire to help others.”