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LIFE

Sole Hope Shoe Cutting Party

This week we hosted our second Sole Hope shoe cutting party at my church.

In a nutshell here is how it works: you get a bunch of people together to trace and cut out fabric for shoes, you ship it to Sole Hope and from there they get it to Uganda where they employ locals to make the shoes and then they give these very shoes to kids in need. So you are helping give someone a job as well as protecting the feet of children from many foot diseases. Win win!

About Sole Hope (from their site):

Sole Hope exists to offer HOPE, healthier lives and freedom from foot related diseases through education, jobs and medical relief. By doing this, adults who need work get paid by Sole Hope to make the Sole Hope shoe for children in villages in the Busoga region. By not wearing closed-toed shoes, children and adults alike are becoming ill due to diseases (specifically a parasite called jiggers) that enter through the feet and rob the body of the little nutrition it has. This can also cause secondary infections like tetanus and gangrene. Many lose their childhood to this parasite and others are unable to attend school because their feet have been so badly mutilated by jiggers.

Last April I had a small shoe cutting party at my house and we were able to cut out fabric for 50 pairs of shoes, then about a month later we had another party, this time at my church and we got enough cut out for 100 pairs of shoes.

On Monday evening we hosted our second party at the church and while we still haven’t assembled all the pairs of shoes (as you can see in the photo above) we have tons of fabric cut. Some of the ladies took patterns home last year and have been cutting fabric out since!

I’m planning on having a mini party at my house just to do some assembling (just pinning the fabric together so we can send it down to the States) and then we should know how many pairs we have.

A shoe cutting party is a great way to make a tangible difference! One of the things that I loved is how many older women from our church have come out and have been such active participants.

If you are interested in hosting a party I would highly recommend it (you can check out some of my tips for hosting from last year), you can purchase your party pack here.

I took my camera this year and had hoped to take lots of photos but I got caught up in all of it and totally forgot and only took that photo at the beginning of the post right at the end after almost everyone was gone. Next time I’ll be sure to take more photos!

Have you ever hosted a Sole Hope party before? Or are you interested in having one in the future? I’d love to hear about it!

I got this photo of my Grandma at last year’s party (she wasn’t feeling good enough to come this year), I just love this picture!

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