About Us

Dear Friends,

Without a doubt, there are countless people throughout the world that lack even the most essential, yet basic necessities of life.

We started this organization to provide shoes to extremely poor children that were walking barefoot on dirt streets, amidst puddles of dirty water, pigs, dogs and other animals’ waste. We were astonished that these small children didn’t have basic foot protection from diseases like Hookworm.

Shoes to the World believes health knows no boundaries. We have performed distributions to many provinces in Colombia, South America and have expanded to Haiti, Guatemala, the Amazon region and South Sudan, Africa. Additionally, counted in our operations, we incorporate a few local, San Diego county, distributions, through sponsors, in our community where need was evident.

There is extreme poverty in many places around the world. It is a fact in our current world that children are born into impoverished conditions, in countries which offer little means to escape their destitution. It is our choice to help these unfortunate people. According to UNICEF in 2016, nearly 385 million children live in extreme poverty. Shoes To The World is committed to our vision of a healthy future for all children, a future filled with access to basic needs and opportunities to bloom. We strive to bring awareness to how the hardship of poverty affects a child’s present and future physical and mental health.

• The World Health Organization (WHO) describes the infection process, “Soil-transmitted helminths live in the intestine of infected individuals where they produce thousands of eggs each day that are passed in the feces’  Poor sanitary conditions, create an environment, where people can be infected by skin penetration or by contaminated food and water. The eggs, then, develop through stages, within the body.
• These are parasitic worms traveling through and infecting the body. Again, to quote Unicef, “Children are particularly susceptible and typically have the largest number of worms. About 400 million school-age children are infected by roundworm, whipworm and/or hookworm. In fact, roundworm and whipworm alone are estimated to affect one-quarter of the world’s population.” For families in poverty, these conditions are a way of life. We bring a sense of safety, protecting the children. The infections further reduce their quality of life. The children are sick. When we arrive, the townspeople understand, they are not alone. People care.
• The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) states, “Heavy infections can cause intestinal blockage and impair growth in children. Other symptoms such as cough are due to migration of the worms through the body.” They go on to describe the effect of whipworm, “Heavy infection in children can lead to severe anemia, growth retardation, and impaired cognitive development.” The CDC estimates 1.2 billion people worldwide, are infected with hookworm and whipworm.

The underprivileged in these developing nations are forced to depend on private foundations and religious organizations for help.  Our goal is to help those in extreme poverty by seeing that they have the basic need of foot protection.

Shoes to the World is a non-profit IRS 501(c)(3) charitable organization. We are uniquely run by volunteers alone allowing for 100% of donations to be used for the purchase of shoes that protect  children living in extreme poverty from foot diseases and parasites that endanger their health and future well being. The founders cover all other operational expenses incurred.

Also, through our travels, we have been maintaining a blog and Facebook page that document our story from the beginning.  Please check out these resources so that you can gain an insight into our passion, but more so, to witness first-hand the countless lives we have impacted by the simple gift of shoes.

Kind Regards,

The Shoes to the World Team