LEWISBURG — There’s a saying about running: All you need to get started is a decent pair of shoes. In Abby Yorks’ case, she hit the ground running with a few-hundred pairs.
“My church ladies and I were looking for something to do over the winter. We saw an organization online about collecting shoes,” said Yorks, an ambassador for Soles4Souls, a Nashville nonprofit that collects and distributes clothing and shoes to people in need. “We got between 100 and 200 pairs in a month. And we thought it was pretty easy to do.”
Yorks has been an ambassador with Soles4Souls since 2019, though she has been collecting shoes since 2009. What began as a relatively small operation has grown significantly over the last decade.
“It’s really not that hard. They just keep coming. Once people know that you’re taking them, those boxes just fill up. It doesn’t always happen right away, but they sporadically fill up,” said Yorks, adding that she has the only large dropoff location, for 25 pairs of shoes or more, in Pennsylvania. “I actually bring in 1,000 pairs a month between all my boxes.”
Her collection boxes throughout Union County can be found at 13 separate locations: New Berlin UCC, Emmanual MC, Mifflinburg UMC, 4 Bells Lutheran, Mifflinburg Lutheran, Mifflinburg UCC, Buffalo Valley Community Church, Lincoln Chapel UMC, Mifflinburg Muscle and Fitness, Inspire Studio, Trutts Pharmacy, Window World and the Union County West End Library.
Collection boxes in Snyder County can be found at Zion Fellowship and Trinity UMC in Middleburg.
“I have a storage location in Lewisburg where I process them. We go through them to make sure that they are still wearable and good enough to be donated,” said Yorks.
The shoes that pass inspection are rubber banded and bagged, to 20 pairs per bag.
“When I have 25,000 pairs, Soles4Souls sends a tractor trailer to pick them up and take them to their hub in New Jersey,” she said.
After that, the nonprofit administers another grading process for each pair before deciding where the shoes will be sent to.
According to Yorks, Soles4Souls has sent shoes to every U.S. state and 129 countries, and relies on each destination’s climate to determine where certain types of shoes should be shipped.
“Right now, since I’ve been doing this, I have processed over 70,000 pairs of shoes for Soles4Souls. When you have 25,000 each time, they allow me to go on one of their distribution trips with them. I have gone twice so far,” said Yorks, noting that she went to Costa Rica in 2019 and to Nashville in 2022.
More information about shoe donations can be found on Abby’s Facebook page at Aunt Abby’s Shoe Mission.
