At Ruben’s Shoes we collect gently used shoes and give them to people in need. In countries like the Dominican Republic, without shoes kids can’t go to school. Millions of children around the world right now are currently not in school simply because they don't have the means, like owning even one pair of shoes.
Imagine if a pair of your shoes could give a child an education? Imagine how that education would change the future for that child?
We give a pair of shoes a second life which gives people in other countries a chance at a new beginning.
Ruben
This all started with a boy, named Ruben. Ruben is 13 years old and lives in the Dominican Republic. When our founder Kelly met him for the first time in December 2012 after she had been sponsoring him for 7 years, she decided to start a small project called Ruben's Shoes.
The problemThere are 61 million children currently out of school. Without an education, the chance for a child to break out of poverty is practically hopeless. And the cycle continues, pregnancy rates in young women continue to rise, preventable death rates rise and poverty rates rise. Many children around the world cannot attend school simply because they do not own a pair of shoes.
The other issue is one of abundance and waste. Last year, Canadians purchased approximately 95 million pairs of shoes and threw out almost 12 million pairs. Did you know that the average pair of shoes takes 40 years to decompose in a landfill? We plan to change this. We've created a recycling program so that instead of ending up in a landfill, gently used shoes can be given to children and adults in other countries who don't have any. A pair of shoes in a country like Sierra Leone can mean the difference between a going to school or not.
What are we doing about this problemWe invest in projects that create access to education to the 61 million children that are currently living without it. Each additional year of school attended by a child in a developing country increases their potential income earning capacity by 10%.
To date, we have successfully shipped and distributed 23,971 pairs of new and gently used shoes to children and adults in the Dominican Republic, India, The Philippines and Tanzania. We have built a new home for 4 families in Puerto Plata and a new kitchen at our partner school Centro Educativo Toribio (CET). Beyond this, we have created an Education Sponsorship program and we are currently providing funding for the operations of our partner school, CET, in the Dominican Republic.
Our Education Sponsorship ProgramWe currently have 52 children enrolled in our Education Sponsorship Program; the monthly contribution given by our sponsors goes directly towards getting their sponsor child to school and keeping him or her there. This includes covering the cost of teachers, providing meals, school supplies and new uniforms. Our goal is to expand our school so that we can open classes for secondary aged children and also accept more children into our sponsorship program.
What we will do with the money
We want to keep growing! We want to keep doing great work and keep changing the lives of children one by one.
This summer we are planning on shipping our 3rd container with another 10,000+ pairs of shoes and school supplies and equipment to Sierra Leone. We currently have 7500 pairs of shoes sorted in boxes and ready to ship and we are on our final push to collect another 2500 pairs before we ship in July.
Sierra Leone & The Dominican RepublicWe are communicating frequently with our partner Stephen Fomba, founder of Basics4Humanity, regarding the distribution plan for all of the shoes. Distribution in Sierra Leone is set to take place at the end of this year and beginning of 2016. Over the next few months and during distribution we will be seeking out opportunities to invest in education and funding projects to help more children get to school.
Beyond our upcoming work in Sierra Leone, we are also planning on expanding our school in the Dominican Republic, Centro Educativo Toribio. We need to add a second floor to our school so that we can expand our sponsorship program and also offer secondary school classes to keep our sponsor children enrolled in our program until they are 16/17 years old.
Your donation will make an impact.
Just like Ruben is one boy who inspired this entire movement, your donation will help us achieve our goals and continue to get more and more children to school; one, by, one.
Join our I AM ONE tribe with a donation of $5 and help us continue to make a difference.
as a registered Canadian Non-Profit Society we are unable to issue tax-receipts.