Twelve-Year Old Makes a Difference

If it's true that you can't judge a man until you've walked a mile in his shoes, 12-year-old Mark Minken may be in good standing.


He's sending more than 500 pairs of shoes — including 16 pairs of his own — to Soles4Souls for distribution to natural disaster victims and others in need.

Mark said he recognizes that shoes are something most people may take for granted.


"But I was just thinking about my ordinary life, and just thinking about the small things, what I couldn't live without," Mark said of the donation he launched as a bar mitzvah project. "(Without shoes) I couldn't do sports or go to school some days because of the weather. Some people don't have that."

The Manalapan-Englishtown Middle School seventh-grader's effort to help others has become a community initiative.


Mark, a Marlboro Jewish Center congregant, set up collections at the synagogue's Chai building, at St. Thomas More Church in Manalapan through his Boy Scout Troop 157, and at Our Lady of Mercy Church in Englishtown through the Knights of Columbus.

So far, he's collected more than 500 pairs. He's aiming to collect 613 pairs to match the number of commandments in the Jewish religious text, the Torah.


He and his mother, Wanda Minken, pick up the footwear in the family's 2008 GMC Yukon or family and friends drop them off at their Clinton Drive home. The shoes — which range from Steve Madden sneakers to Nine West pumps, from Uggs boots to Mark's own favorite pair of white Nikes with a blue swoosh - are being stored in a garage. About 10 to 20 percent of them have been brand new, Minken said.

"It's been like the pebble in the pond," she said. "You drop your pebble and there's all these rings that generate from that one little pebble."


The family plan to ship or deliver the donations themselves to Soles4Souls' Concord, Va., warehouse in the coming months. From there, the footwear will be shipped to areas and organizations in need in 35 states and 50 countries, including camps for disadvantaged children, abused women's shelters and Indian reservations in New Mexico.

Mark said he was pleased the "sole-ful" effort has drawn more local supporters to help victims — like children who were impacted by the May 12 earthquake in China estimated to have killed more than 50,000.

"They were just helpless and couldn't get away from it," Mark said. "I felt bad for them."

"Whenever I lose something I lose a little pride, like, I feel bad for myself," Mark said. "I hope that people who lost stuff, when they get these shoes, maybe they'll get something back from it — like they'll realize that people care about them, that people know what's going on there."