Vickroy: Where in the developing world is Mona Purdy now?
DONNA VICKROY dvickroy@southtownstar.com | (708) 633-5982 January 13, 2012 8:16PM
Ginny Mudgett, an employee of Share Your Soles, packs up shoes headed overseas at their facility at 5623 W 115th Street in Alsip, IL on Wednesday January 11, 2012 | Matt Marton~Sun-Times Media
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Share Your Soles collects new and gently used shoes as well as non-motorized items that help with mobility. The drop-off is at 5623 W. 115th St., Alsip. Information: Call (708) 448-4469 or visit shareyoursoles.org
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Updated: February 16, 2012 8:02AM
When we last chatted with Mona Purdy, she was getting ready to run the Chicago Marathon.
It was her first attempt, and if you’re wondering if she finished, well, you don’t know Mona Purdy.
Last week, the founder of the Share Your Soles nonprofit was helping load a cargo container bound for Uganda. But before she arrives at an African refugee camp to help distribute 7,000 pairs of shoes, 50 bikes, a bunch of wheelchairs and walkers, and several boxes of soccer balls, she will run a half-marathon in Carlsbad, Calif., then head down to Tijuana to help unload another 3,000 pairs of shoes, and then, after a brief stint back home, hop a flight to Haiti with more shoes and equipment.
Finally, she’ll meet her cargo container in east Africa.
Meanwhile, she’s having trouble sleeping.
“I keep thinking there’s more I could be doing,” she said.
Since 1999, the Worth mother of three has delivered about 1.5 million pairs of shoes to needy people in distressed areas around the world. And if there’s one thing she’s learned, it’s that poverty is relative.
Many Americans have had it rough these past four or five years, but in some developing countries our definition of poverty would be a giant step up the comfort ladder.
In some places, including Haiti, Uganda and Guatemala, people walk miles a day for food, water, school and church. A decent pair of shoes is a significant luxury.
And we’re not talking $180 Air Jordans. We’re talking the gently used walking shoes you sacrificed to the style gods some time ago.
Purdy collects them at her warehouse in Alsip. Then she launders them, boxes them up and ships them out. She also collects other items that help people with mobility, including canes and walkers.
She’s traveled to the poorest parts of the world to distribute her wares.
She was supposed to be in Pakistan the week of Christmas, but security concerns forced a cancellation.
Unrest, she said, is part of the deal when you’re working with developing countries.
That’s the very reason she now has a 40-foot cargo container heading for Uganda. It was originally intended for Nigeria. But when violence broke out there last month, Plan B went into effect.
When she meets the shipment at the border of Uganda and Sudan, she will help distribute the materials.
“I want to see the kids’ faces when they get the shoes,” she said.
On each trip, she is accompanied by a photographer who documents the expedition and posts the video to her website.
“I want people to see where their donations go,” she said.
Though she always needs money to pay for the extraordinary shipping costs, she said she is grateful that many people donate supplies.
Rebound Sports donated the soccer balls. Working Bikes donated the bikes. And several Chicago-area hospitals and nursing homes donated the wheelchairs and walkers.
After our marathon story ran in the fall, Purdy, who did indeed finish the race, was contacted by Orland Park businessman Ron Pietrzak, who runs the International Society of Transport Aircraft Trading. He told Purdy the humanitarian arm of ISTAT, which provides free and low-cost transport for humanitarian charities, would be willing to pay for shipments that involve air freight.
“They’re picking up the tab for the Haiti mission,” Purdy said.
The bill for the $14,000 container shipment via ocean freighter to Africa was picked up by an anonymous donor, she said.
Purdy also gets help from Elsa Bandy, a Glenview woman she met on the Fort Lauderdale-to-Chicago leg of a flight back from Haiti, and two African refugees.
Vincent Zaiko escaped the horrors of Rwanda’s genocide by walking to freedom. He lives in Chicago and works at the warehouse on Wednesdays. Providence Rubingisa, who also escaped Rwanda, will accompany Purdy on the Uganda trip.
Though she undoubtedly has a full plate, Purdy already is looking ahead to future projects: She needs new or gently used black shoes so that children in Third World Catholic communities will be able to attend school.
Something as simple as a pair of shoes, she said, gives children love, hope and opportunities.
“In the developing world, people walk to live,” she said. “We can at least give them shoes.”
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