USA (MNN)
— In the inner city across the United
States, a good pair of shoes can be the
first step toward helping needy children out of poverty's cycle.
Here's Life Inner City's National Director Ted Gandy says
that's why they launched the "Heart and Sole" campaign. The lack of decent
shoes "really chips
away at the self-image of these needy children." In many cases, they are so humiliated that he
or she doesn't even want to go to school to be snickered at by other
children.
HLIC's "Heart and Sole" premise is simple: "Give
inner-city children good shoes, and they're more likely to stay in school —
with a fighting chance to break out of the cycle of poverty they were born
into."
It's a partnership effort to mount this kind of change in
the heart of poverty. Gandy says, "Every
year we've sought to raise funds so that we can provide shoes to ministries
that are working in the inner city 24/7 so that they could, in turn, provide
those shoes to families that are struggling."
HLIC wants to raise enough to give a pair of "in-the-box-smelling-new" shoes to 1,750 children across the nation. It costs $26.60 to give a pair of
back-to-school shoes to a child of the inner city, just in time for the school
year.
It also means touching communities with the hope of Christ. In
the hands of their dedicated ministry partners, new shoes become powerful
evangelism tools. First, you touch the
kids. "They actually get shoes that
are their size!" Then, Gandy adds,
you touch the family. "It communicates to
them that this ministry really cares about them. When that is communicated, it just opens the
door to both meeting other physical needs and meeting the emotional needs, but
also being able to minister to those children spiritually."
Click here if you can help.
