A Christchurch school is making sure its students appreciate all
the small things in life, like a simple pair of shoes.
Cobham Intermediate students have been collecting and cleaning old
footwear, so they can be sent for use in impoverished
countries.
Over 2000 pairs of shoes, slippers, boots, jandals and pretty much shoes of all different sizes and colours have been collected, all in the name of charity.
The collected shoes are then cleaned by the students before they are sent to a charity in the USA called "Share your Soles", which then sends them to countries around the world where people cannot afford them.
Nick Leith, a Cobham Intermediate teacher, says the teachers are trying to teach the students how they can make a contribution to society: "&so even though they're young and think there're at the mercy of everything around them, they're actually able to achieve so much by working together".
The students say getting the footwear was the easy part. Now they have to make plans on how they are going to raise $5000 to ship them, and they may just have one.
They are organising a letter writing campaign to big businesses all across the country, asking them to fund their charity.
And for the students, every shoe they can send overseas will be
a step in the right direction.