“I don’t want your money, just your soles. Your shoe soles that is!” This is the saying of George Hutchings, better known as The Shoeman.
The Veteran, Vietnam Marine has been collecting shoes since 1998 in order to raise money to drill wells for the poor people of Kenya.
It all started when Hutchings founded the Eagle Wings Ministries. Its goal was to prevent international college students from being sent back to their home countries.
Through the organization, Hutchings was able to meet a man from Kenya who kept sending shoes to his family and village back home.
Hutchings realized it was not just this man’s community that was shoeless, but most of the country as well.
So Hutchings visited some friends at the bank.
“I went to see my friends Mr. MasterCard and Mr. Visa and together we shipped 30,000 pairs of shoes down to Kenya,” Hutchings said.
Hutchings started sending hundreds of shoes to Kenya where the footwear could be sold for pennies on the dollar, or bartered for other goods like pineapples and bananas.
Now, Hutchings sells the shoes for 35 cents a pound and purchases well drilling rigs to send to Kenya so the people can get the fresh, clean water they need.
According to newsfromafrica.org, 10 people die every day from consumption of contaminated water, and children are commonly found retrieving water from leaking sewage trains, which comes with its own obvious heath associations.
Clean water in South America is also more expensive than food, a necessity already difficult enough to come by.
In 2008, Hutchings’ organization sent over 154,000 pairs of shoes to Kenya and was able to drill wells for 120,000 people, including a school of 600 who had not had clean water for 10 years.
Senior Rachel Brown, heard about Hutchings “The Shoeman” through Living World Church.
“My mom made me go listen to his speech and I expected it to be really boring, but he came out and really got everyone fired up about helping out,” Brown said.
In fact, Hutchings goes to many different churches and organizations to talk about his project of “turning used shoes into water.”
“He (Hutchings) took our guilt and transformed it into power, power to help others,” Brown said.
Today, like many others, Hutchings is placing his focus on Haiti’s recent devestation.
The earthquake made the ground unstable for drilling wells, creating expections for an outbreak of cholera, a sickness due to the consumption of dirty water.
“Our goal is to collect 100,000 pairs by February so we can get distilleries to give clean water to villages, schools and hospitals in Haiti,” Hutchings said.
So George Hutchings asks you to give up your unwanted shoe soles for the people who need them the most.
To make a donation or for more information visit George “The Shoeman” Hutchings website www.shoeman.org
