SHOES FOR CHRISTMAS
Each Christmas, we buy shoes and socks for children in Uganda. We buy them in Uganda both to support the local economy and because the cost of transporting shoes into Uganda is prohibitive. The cost for a pair of school shoes and socks is $15.
We ask our sponsors to buy shoes for their kids each year, but we don't stop there! Anyone can help with our annual Christmas Shoe Project.
Shoes represent hope for desperately poor children in Uganda because no one can go to school without them. There are other sponsorship programs like ours for poor kids, and there is a government sponsored program that helps poor children, but all the schools require shoes. Parents and guardians who could afford fees at a subsidized school often cannot come up with the "large" lump sum for shoes, so owning shoes is the first step in getting into school. Also, students in school must always wear shoes with their required uniforms. As children outgrow shoes, they will find themselves unable to return to school without new ones.
To show how much shoes mean to a child in Uganda, we found a situation on one of our first trips where a mother scraped together enough money to send her 4th grade son back to school after her husband died. The school said the boy had to wear shoes, but the only shoes in her home were her own high-heeled shoes. The boy wore those shoes to school every day, even though the other children ridiculed him!
Buying a pair of shoes and socks for a child in Uganda is the perfect gift for that someone who has everything! We've heard from supporters who buy shoes instead of Christmas presents for family, friends, and business associates. We even have cards that you can print out to acknowledge your gift.
For information about how you can give shoes for the children of Uganda, or if your civic or church group would be interested in having someone from the Uganda Children's Project speak about this initiative, please email us.
To contribute via PayPal or credit carrd, click HERE