Soles4Souls Shoe Drive

Emmettt and Connor Shaw, 11-year-old twins from Newport, organizing February effort to collect shoes for Soles4Soles

Eleven-year-old twins Emmet and Connor Shaw of Newport are asking residents of Aquidneck Island to recycle their 'gently worn' shoes in an effort to help distribute shoes to people in need. Working with the Nashville, Tenn.-based Soles4Soles®, the two sixth-graders have arranged for collection centers in Middletown and Newport in the hopes that people will donate new or gently used shoes for the cause.

Drop-off locations will be set up during the month of February at Aquidneck Restaurant & Pizzeria, 27 Aquidneck Avenue in Middletown, and the Newport Public Library, 300 Spring Street, St. Michael’s Country Day School, 180 Rhode Island Avenue, and Cluny School, 75 Brenton Road, all in Newport. Emmett attends Cluny School and Connor is at St. Michael’s Country Day School.

Founded in 2005, Soles4Souls Inc. is a relief organization committed to collecting and distributing shoes to people worldwide living in extreme poverty and recovering from natural disasters. Providing one pair of shoes to a person in need every seven seconds, Soles4Souls has distributed more than 13 million pairs of shoes worldwide. In a statement Soles4Souls says it “believes partners like Emmett & Connor Shaw will challenge others to become a force of change by helping the charity cater to the evolving needs of the global community.”

“With tragedies such as the earthquakes in countries like Haiti and Japan, on top of the enormous needs elsewhere, we can use the estimated 1.5 billion shoes taking up space in the closets of ordinary people to change the world one pair at a time,” said Founder and CEO of Soles4Souls, Wayne Elsey.