Charitable Organization That Provides Work Shoes?

[wildernesse]

Yes, I have googled. But the one that pops up the most (Soles4Souls) seems to be about giving away your worn-out work shoes so that someone can have some plain old shoes and you can keep them out of the landfill.

Basically, I have been volunteering at a clothing center/food bank/free lunch place for the past several weeks. Our clients are a mix of people--some are homeless, others are families that would be categorized as working poor, others are recently-released prisoners, etc.

One thing I have heard over and over again is that people (mostly men) are hoping to find shoes/boots appropriate for work. We pretty much never have them because the people who donate to our clothes center don't do that kind of work, and, from what I've seen, people who do tend to wear their boots out.

Have any of you heard of a local or national organization that donates work boots/shoes? Or a local org that took this on as a project? Or a retailer that is known for its charitable work? Or have wanted to hire people who need appropriate shoes? I'd like to figure out if someone, somewhere has done this to see what the biggest hurdles are. Besides price, fit, and serving populations that aren't warm and fuzzy.

[livius drusus]

You mean like construction type work? Steel-toed boots? Dress for Success (http://www.dressforsuccess.org/) does have some dress shoes for office work, but only for women afaik. I wonder if they might have a line on organizations that help people with other kinds of work-appropriate shoes. Perhaps it's worth giving them a call?

[wildernesse]

Thanks, liv. I will try searching more along the Dress for Success lines.

I'm thinking mostly construction and other types of heavy jobs where protective footwear would be required.

[livius drusus]

Yeah those are expensive, and there are actually OSHE regulations about them, iirc. If such a charity doesn't exist, it clearly should. I've never thought about it before but what a huge need for people trying to get contract work or keep a current gig.

[Demimonde]

Kitchen shoes too can be a bit pricey. I thought of Dress for Success imediately but I never thought about men needing work shoes. You may be on to something wildy, run with it!

:run:

[Anastasia Beaverhausen]

Go for it, wildy - that's brilliant.

(I would recommend Danskos for kitchen/hospital work - they're the only shoes my nurse friends wear.)

[Ronin]

Wildy,

We started our own "Helping Hands" effort (really my daughter's idea) where we collect bulk boxes of work gloves and send them to areas affected by natural or human made disasters.

Our family was fortunate enough to have additional resources to also send a new chainsaw to the folks in Yazoo City MS after that mile wide tornado recently ravaged its way across the width of our state.

MS Tornado Disaster - Donations To Families and Workers (http://www.meetup.com/Hearts-of-the-south/photos/901688/#14680429)

Personally, my first experience with the "let's just do it ourselves" principle began over at II, with Leslie Zukor and the books for prisoners drive.

In Biloxi, we have a rather large population of the working homeless. The Able Body and Labor Finders businesses provide mostly contract, general construction and clean up work, but hardly equip/clothe them for the tasks.

Our local SVDP had it's supply shed burn down a couple days ago and lots of those sorts of supplies were lost.

I'll look into what they're doing in order to rebuild and replenish their stock and post something soon.