Bellevue Community Church holds 1,000 pair weekend

Bellevue Community Church held the "1,000 Shoe Weekend" that supported the Soles4Souls campaign to collect a million pairs of new and gently worn shoes. The community minded church encouraged members of the congregation to attend a service during the weekend of May 19th and 20th and leave their shoes on the altar in order to demonstrate God's love to hurting people across the world with the simple gift of shoes. Half of the pairs donated during the weekend will support the Million Pair March; the other half will be delivered to the Nashville Rescue Mission for distribution to the region's homeless population.

Bellevue Community Church's new senior pastor, David Perez, says that the Million Pair March is the type of grassroots campaign that his congregation will support in a major way.

"The people at this church have huge hearts for missions and making a tangible difference in someone's life," Perez said. "Shoes are a simple commodity that we all take for granted, and by donating the shoes right off our feet, we hope to inspire our community to get involved in helping less fortunate people in our community, as well as around the world," Perez said.

"Compassionate church members -- like the ones at Bellevue Community Church -- are helping transform our charity's goals into reality," said Wayne Elsey, Founder and Chairman of the Board of Soles4Souls. "We are impressed with their creative ideas on how to reach out to their community and the world. We are especially delighted that a church body from our community would partner with us in such a big way," Elsey said.

Elsey is also exploring the environmental benefits of Soles4Souls. "Recycling is a big part of being socially conscious, and discarded shoes take up an enormous amount of space in our nation's landfills," he said. "The concept is really a win-win for people and the environment. Donating your shoes will help someone in need and not take up unnecessary space in our landfills," he said.

According to Elsey, there are two ways individuals can get involved with the campaign. The first is to clean out individual closets and ship the shoes to the charity's warehouse in Alabama for worldwide distribution. Many celebrities, athletes, politicians, and even hundreds of schoolchildren have already raised hundreds of thousands of shoes for the effort. The second is to donate money to be used completely for shipping expenses. Details are available at http://www.giveshoes.org/.