Best Foot Forward: Buckner Shoes For Orphan Souls Distributes 5 Millionth Pair of Shoes to Kids in Need

Started in Dallas 24 years ago, Buckner Shoes for Orphan Souls has delivered its 5 millionth pair of shoes, to a child in central Mexico earlier this year. During that trip, the program served around 300 kids over the course of a few days.

“It may seem like a small moment when you sit down and give a pair of shoes to a child,” says Shawn Spurrier, director of Buckner Shoes for Orphan Souls. “[Those moments] are really moments of hope, and they can lead to a lot of pretty amazing transformational lives of families.

“... When you donate online to provide a pair of shoes, you really don't know the situation that those shoes are going to enter. You don’t know the story of the child.”

Rodrigo Correon Martinez received that 5 millionth pair in Oaxaca City. His family, Spurrier says, faced a choice between food and clothing, causing the Martinez children to fall behind on their education. “Since they have entered Buckner programming, they are kind of achieving sustainability and receiving needed aid such as shoes and that sort of thing,” he says.

In his nearly 10 years as director, Spurrier has traveled across the globe with Buckner Shoes For Orphan Souls distributions, witnessing the program’s impact firsthand. “We’ve seen it, where kids have that moment of hope,” he says. “That things kind of change for them, knowing that they’re cared for, that somebody was thinking about them.”

The project began under the name Orphan Shoes for Russian Souls, led by KCBI, a faith-based radio station, in 1994. The original director, Ron Harris, observed children living in orphanages in Russia who didn’t own a pair of shoes, and he wanted to meet that need. “When [the kids] would leave for school in the morning, they would actually have to check out a pair of shoes,” Spurrier says.
Buckner International took over the project in 1999 as a local effort, fueled predominantly by churches, businesses and civic organizations. Today, Buckner Shoes for Orphan Souls works full time in Texas, Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, the Dominican Republic, Peru and Kenya and has partnerships with collaborators in 86 other countries.

About 20% of the shoes collected by Buckner Shoes for Orphan Souls remain in the United States, according to the organization’s website. The U.S. has a shoe need as well, especially with recent inflationary highs and supply chain issues, Spurrier says. Ultimately, their work is about the “opportunity to carry that burden for families here [and] send kids to school with some confidence,” he says.

For Spurrier, the power of a pair of shoes cannot be understated. “Shoes often feel like a simple thing for us,” he says. “They are kind of a choice for us. When I leave the house every day, I have a choice of what shoes to wear, but for a lot of kids, it's a pivotal thing.”

Shoes help protect children’s health by preventing foot-borne illnesses such as jiggers, or tungiasis, an infection, most often in the foot, caused by a species of flea that burrows into human skin. “If you are a family that is already in a vulnerable situation, having that added struggle of an infection that you’re having to manage can also be pretty difficult,” Spurrier says.

There is also an educational factor, as some children aren’t able to attend school without a pair of shoes. “When you look at the grand kind of scope of the issue, that education is often pivotal to a family rising above poverty and achieving sustainability,” he says.

Despite their work, global shoe need remains a consistent issue. “There are an estimated 300 million children throughout the world who lack access to adequate footwear,” he says.  “The need for adequate footwear, and food, and any other aid item hasn’t really diminished. [For] families who might have been struggling before the pandemic, that kind of was amplified by the pandemic.”

Plus, the importance of shoes isn’t at the forefront of the cultural conversation as much as it was in the past, Spurrier says. “In the early 2000s, the need for shoes, people understood it. It was getting a lot more traction. Companies were talking about it. I don't know that it’s as present in people’s minds right now, that that need is still as prevalent, but it is.”

The organization's current model has businesses, civic groups and churches coming together to collect shoes, and Buckner Shoes for Orphan Souls later distributing them. But Spurrier hopes to innovate on that model, keeping the program as hands-on as it has been while opening up more flexible donation opportunities. “We launched a new website where you can actually go on and donate towards the purchase of shoes,” he says. “In a lot of ways, [we are] innovating the process of getting people engaged and our procurement process for shoes.”
Through all of this statewide and global movement, Dallas remains central to the operation. The Buckner Humanitarian Aid Center located here is responsible for shipping and sorting shoes collected in drives across the United States.

Now, Spurrier is on-site at a shoe drive in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where he says the importance of their grassroots volunteer base is palpable. “Behind each of the shoes are countless donors, volunteers who come into the Buckner Center, [and] volunteers on the shoe drive side who collect them and process them,” he says. “Our ability to do this is directly connected to the excitement and engagement of countless people who have made 5 million pairs of shoes possible. It's just reflective of a lot of people who have engaged with this activity and this project.”