Sole Purpose

Visualize living in the jungle, you sleep on a dirt floor and you live in a "shanty" constructed with assorted branches as wall studs, cardboard boxes randomly attached as walls, all covered by a rusty tin roof barely able to block out sunlight or offer any sort of protection from the elements.

Think about the ever present dangers crawling on the ground, flying in the air and hanging from the trees.

Imagine the sweltering heat and suffocating humidity.

It's early morning and you have to get ready for work. You don't have a toilet, shower or even a mirror.

Remind yourself that you have to be on your way by 5:30 because it's a 2 1/2 hour walk through a thick jungle in the dark just to get to work.

You arrive at the job site, you are tired because you had to carry your own shovel, pick and 20 pound digging bar.

You always carry the tools of the trade when you exit the jungle in case a job presents itself.

You are most likely clearing weeds and brush today. Maybe putting up a barb wire fence.

You don't have gloves, water or lunch but you'll be finished around 3pm. Just enough time to walk back to your village for dinner before Darkness settles in.

Your wage is $6.00 per day, and you'll need to save every penny because you and some teenage boys are the only "bread winners" for the entire village family.

By the way, the shoes you have on your feet were donated to you in average condition, they never quite fit right and are now 5 years old.

Your toes are hanging out of the sides, but you've gotten used to the blisters and cuts. Not to mention the things biting, stinging , jabbing and getting stuck in your shoe.

This is reality, it's the daily struggle for many villagers.

OK, you live a million miles away from that senario.

You are safe, well fed, comfortable and happy.

It's probably next to impossible for you to put yourself in their shoes.

What is possible, is for you to put them in new shoes.

We are bringing a Brannock shoe sizer into the jungle this summer. We hope to accurately size each villager to

pair them up with the right size shoe. The adults usually wear their shoes out and require the same size replacement shoe. The children and young adults are still growing and need their shoe size checked regularly and fitted for a bigger sized shoe. We definitely need all sizes of shoes for the villagers as far as donations go. However, because they will only have one pair of shoes we would like to present them with a Fresh, New pair of shoes that will fit correctly.

To accomplish this we will take cash donations to fund the purchase of shoes in Nicaragua.

For optimal foot health, Nail Clippers will be included with each pair of New Shoes.