Jeans for a cause

Give life and meaning to your worn-out jeans by donating them to a good cause. Turning jeans into children's shoes is the current community service project of RU’s Mu Phi Epsilon, an international professional music fraternity. They seeks jeans (or denim) donations as a basis to help provide better foot care for African children in impoverished areas.

Sole Hope is the non-profit organization that is the beneficiary of the Mu Phi Epsilon’s efforts. After the Sole Hope’s founders became aware of the problem of jiggers infecting and damaging feet tissue of African children and the devastation this causes, the organization began providing closed-toe shoes as a preventive measure. Jiggers or chigoe fleas are found in tropical and sub-tropical climates.

Organizations and groups are encouraged to collect jeans and host shoe cutting parties. Sole Hope provides shoe templates or shoe cutting party packages. Then the cut-out jean materials are sent to Sole Hope, who has the cut-outs made into shoes. Africans are employed for the actual shoe making.

“I heard about Sole Hope through several friends who live in the Asheville area, where the organization is based, and I wanted to be involved,” said Chelsea McGinnis, the community service chair for Mu Phi Epsilon.

Last semester the fraternity hosted a shoe cutting party and cut out the material for approximately 30 shoes. They hope to double that number this semester.  Their shoe cutting party will take place at the fraternity’s district conference.

 “The mission of Sole Hope is especially important to us this semester because we are sponsoring a child, Samba, in the Gambia, Africa,” McGinnis said. Although the shoes they cut out will not go directly to Samba, they believe their efforts will serve children just like him.

Collection boxes are located in the lower level Porterfield Hall music lounge and the Covington Center’s music library. Jean donations are being accepted until Nov. 14. For more information, contact McGinnis at cmcginnis@radford.edu.