Three Grahamstown schools will benefit this week from a nationwide campaign to put school shoes on the feet of young, underprivileged children in South Africa.
Three Grahamstown schools will benefit this week from a nationwide campaign to put school shoes on the feet of young, underprivileged children in South Africa.
On Friday the Put Foot Foundation will partner with St Andrew’s College and Diocesan School for Girls to hand shoes to pupils at Grahamstown's Good Shepherd School, Tantyi Primary School and St Mary's Day Care Centre.
The more than R 600 000 the organisation has raised in its first year of operation has enabled it to donate 4 116 school shoes to 10 schools across Southern Africa.
Six of the other seven schools are in Durban, Cape Town and Johannesburg. The 10th school is in Zambia and will receive its shoes during the 2013 Put Foot Rally, organised by social adventure events company, Mountainshak Adventures.
“We want to show people that making a small difference in the lives of children will have a far reaching and positive impact on the entire country, and continent,” said the foundation’s managing director Daryn Hillhouse.
“The Put Foot Foundation sets out to give children hope, pride and dignity by giving them a pair of brand new, 100% leather quality South African-made school shoes, so that they can get on with what is important: playing, learning and having fun,” Hillhouse said.
The Put Foot Foundation was founded last year by South Africans Hillhouse, Mike Sharman and Dan Nash. They aim to raise enough to donate 100 000 pairs of school shoes to underprivileged children across South Africa in the next five years.
The team encourages people to join the Put Foot Foundation as a volunteer, and participate in ‘shoe drops’.
In addition, anyone who wants to support the Foundation can get involved by donating online, volunteering or signing up for the Put Foot Rally.
“We have set out to raise at least R1m in 2013, but with the help of our partners at Buccaneer Shoes, Volkswagen Amarok and the 60 crews taking part in the 2013 Put Foot Rally, I’m anticipating that we will be able to buy shoes for even more children than we originally hoped, for our next round of shoe drops,” concluded Hillhouse.
