Colleyville Youth Collect Shoes for Charity

A group of Colleyville, Texas, young women collected over 160 pairs of shoes to donate to local charity I Will Stand International, based in Hurst. The teens, who are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, were searching for a way to serve in the community and discovered I Will Stand, which strives to empower and restore hope to vulnerable women and children here in the DFW area and around the world.

Youth leader, Elizabeth Smith, said, “We have been trying to incorporate more service into our weekly activities. Many of our girls wanted to serve after the hurricane in South Texas but were unable to go. We thought, ‘what can we do here locally?’ We checked on JustServe.org [a website where the volunteer needs of organizations may be posted] and came across this wonderful organization. The girls loved the idea of a shoe drive!”

The young women took the lead on the project. They met to organize and spent a few weeks making posters and flyers for display and distribution. They prepared large collection boxes and placed them in the lobbies of their church building. After enlisting the help of the adults in their congregation and other congregations in Southlake and Keller, they were soon overwhelmed by the number of shoes donated! The shoes were all sizes, types and in every condition. The leadership at I Will Stand assured the young women that any and all shoes would be used by the communities they serve. They would either be sent to Rwanda to be used by families there, or they would stay in Hurst in the “Restoration Boutique,” where women and their children can come and get the things they need.

“Anytime you start something like this, you aren’t sure how well it will go,” Smith says. “But the boxes started filling up, and that night, when we gathered to compile and organize the boxes of shoes, the girls were so excited. They knew they were making a difference in someone’s life.”

“It was a pretty simple service project, but really, what we are trying to teach the girls is that it all comes back to the love of Jesus Christ. We want to live like He did, and in this case, everyone learned a little bit more about how to do that. We can all help in some way.”

Anna Smith, a 15-year-old sophomore at Grapevine High School, expressed her excitement about seeing the project come together. “The shoe drive was a purely amazing experience! In the scriptures, I always read about Jesus serving others. The way to become more like Him is through service. The shoe drive helped us do a little bit of that. It made me realize how grateful I am for opportunities to serve others. I felt so happy and full of love for the people who would get the shoes, even though I will never meet them. Tears came to my eyes when I saw all of the shoes we had gathered. I learned so much about how much God loves his children. I want to love like that.”

I Will Stand International: https://www.iwillstandintl.org

Just Serve: https://www.justserve.org