A bright green van advertises Honey Creek Church’s shoe drive for Soles4Souls.
RYAN TRARES | DAILY JOURNAL
The bright green sneaker is hard to miss.
Affixed to an equally vivid green bus, the shoe screams out for attention. The congregation at Honey Creek Church is banking on this bringing attention to their cause.
With an eye-catching setup outside the church, Honey Creek is embarking on a shoe drive as part of its mission work. Through March 10, the church will be collecting new or gently used shoes to support Soles4Souls, a nonprofit organization working with people in poverty around the world.
The goal is to fill their little bus with shoes. In doing so, the Honey Creek congregation, and the community as a whole, can provide a brighter future for people in need.
“The church is really committed to being the hands of Jesus in the world,” said Rhea Bohall, who is part of the Honey Creek mission committee spearheading the drive.”
Honey Creek’s shoe drive is part of a larger mission reset the church embarked on in the winter of 2023. As an independent congregation, the church’s mission committee wanted to reimagine the way it could directly help others.
The committee focused on about 15 projects or organizations addressing poverty and food scarcity, health issues, especially for children, clean water, and emotional and mental health needs of marginalized populations.
“They feel really strongly that our mission work is really the core, the central part of what church should be doing in the world nowadays,” Bohall said. “A huge pillar of what Honey Creek does is reaching out to the community.”
Efforts included providing bags of Thanksgiving food for clients of the Interchurch Food Pantry and giving gifts to children of incarcerated people through the church’s Angel Tree Program.
The church also gave financial support to various causes, including the Clean Water Project, World Central Kitchen and Dove Recovery House for women recovering from addiction. Funding also went to the Smile Train organization, which sends physicians and funds to repair cleft lip and palates in kids in countries with medical care is lacking.
Other supported efforts include volunteering and funding for Habitat for Humanity, helping build handicap-accessible ramps for low-income families through SAWS (Servants at Work), and volunteering and donating to the Red Bird Mission in Beverly, Kentucky.
Soles4Soles is the next focus for Honey Creek.
“When we picked the projects were going to support, we did some research on the different groups. (Soles4Soles) seemed to be a really well-respected program,” Bohall said.
The nonprofit uses a four-pronged approach to serving those in need, including providing clothing and footwear to people in crisis situations, partnering with community organizations to stock resale businesses, giving new athletic shoes to kids experiencing homelessness, and keeping clothing and shoes out of landfills.
“They send the shoes overseas to poor areas of the world to help people become entrepreneurs and set up resale shops, so they have a sustainable way of supporting themselves,” Bohall said. “It’s not a hand-out, it’s really a program to help people figure out how to sustain their own lives.”
Honey Creek Church launched its shoe drive on Feb. 18 and unveiled the green bus that will serve as the donation site at 2722 S. Honey Creek Road, Greenwood. Over three weeks, they are collecting new and gently used shoes of all sizes and kinds from the community. Collection bins are set up next to the bus, and anyone can donate.
To provide an incentive, the church is inviting people to guess the number of shoes they’ll collect. People can submit a guess in a drop-box at the collection site, and whoever is closest will receive a $100 gift certificate to Dick’s Sporting Goods, donated by the Greenwood Dick’s Sporting Goods and Pathways to Wealth in Greenwood.
Shoes can be new or gently used shoes that are clean and in a good state. Lace-up shoes should have laces when donated. People are asked to keep donated shoes together by pair, either by tying them together by the laces or by placing each pair in a bag.
HOW TO HELP
Honey Creek Church shoe drive
What: An effort collecting shoes to support Soles4Shoes, a nonprofit that uses the shoes to help people impacted by poverty around the world.
When: Through March 10
Where: Honey Creek Church, 2272 S. Honey Creek Road, Greenwood
How to help: Shoes can be new or gently used shoes that are clean and in good state, including laces intact if they are part of the shoes. Shoes can be tied together with laces or placed in a small bag and tied so the pairs do not get separated. Donation containers are located at the church.
