Student Shoe Collectors on NBC17.com

Students from Ravenscroft in Raleigh are helping others throughout the world with the gift of shoes. Third graders Ryan Gerard and Allison Arber know the importance of wearing shoes.

"People who don't have shoes could get splinters in their feet," Arber said.

So the kids launched a shoe drive at their school for the charity Soles4Souls. On the very first day students filled the bin with gently worn shoes.

"It makes me feel really good. It's helping people and I like to help people," Gerard said.

The tsunami's devastation in southeast Asia sparked a former shoe company executive to establish the first shoe drive for the charity Souls4Soles. Donors shipped 250,000 shoes to disaster victims. Hurricane Katrina followed and another outpouring of support with 750,000 pair of shoes. Most recently, 50,000 soles to help people devastated by California's wildfires.

The footwear industry supports the charity as well as grassroots efforts from schools like Ravenscroft. Adults and children brought in bags of new shoes or gently used shoes.
They filled bin after bin for 11 days.

"I thought we'd only get 100 pairs, but we are over that," Arber said.

Gerard and Arber can be proud. Their school donated 500 pairs of shoes. Now the shoes go to a New Balance store off Glenwood Avenue in Raleigh where the owners will foot the shipping bill to the charity’s main warehouse in Alabama. Owner Mark Allard said he'll take and ship even more donations through the end of the year.

“One and a half billion pairs of shoes are in Americans closets right now unused sitting there out of style, don't fit. People's unwanted pairs are sometimes some people's only pair or first pair of shoes in the world," Allard said.