Colorado Church Collects 1,500 Pair of Shoes

Becky Musgrove, a member of Amazing Grace Community Church in Northglenn found a simple idea when she read an article in Guideposts Magazine about the need for shoes in developing countries or in regions hit by natural disaster.

"Most people in the United States have such an abundance of material goods," said Musgrove. "There are 1.5 billion pairs of shoes out there just lying around without a use, and most of the time they just end up in a landfill."

Amazing Grace Community Church began meeting at Northglenn High School in June. Since the church was already looking for a mission project to present to her new church, Musgrove decided to pitch the idea of a shoe drive for Soles4Souls, which distributes shoes to people in need throughout the world.

The idea was a hit.

"We started passing out fliers around the neighborhood, just hoping neighbors would look around and look for extra shoes lying around in their home," said Pastor Kent Replogle. "We thought we might see a few pairs, maybe a few hundred."

After handing out door fliers to 1,500 homes in the neighborhood, the church expected a trickle of donations. After a few weeks, the donations turned from a trickle to more of a flood.

"We have as many pairs of shoes as homes we visited in June," said Replogle, looking over a collection of more than 1,500 pairs of shoes, heels and boots piled along the front wall of the church's meeting place, a small theatre at Northglenn High School.

"The problem now is we got a bit too big."

With what amounts to a small freight of shoes on their hands, the church is asking for someone to donate a truck, some room in a truck or gas cards to help ship the Amazing Grace donation to the nearest Soles4Souls drop site in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The shoes need to be out of the high school by the middle of July.

If you would like to help, contact Pastor Kent Replogle at pastor.kent@amazinggracecc.net or contact the church at 303-919-4662.