Driving through the country back roads on a Sunday afternoon, dust clouds in my review mirror I squinted my eyes at numbers on mailbox's of the farmsteads we were passing.
Finally the right number came in to view and our two vehicles pulled up next to barns that looked like they were meant for a country calendar.
Tall grass brushed my legs stepping out of the vehicle and our kids screamed with delight at the wide open play space and new things to discover. A door creak caught my attention as the person we were supposed to meet headed our way.
We skipped the handshakes and headed right for the hug. After all, we are Soles4Souls family.
Meet Kathy Buhrman. 5,780 pairs of shoes were packed into two barns...three years worth of collecting.
I brought out some balloons from the car and a medal to put around her neck. Because of Kathy you see, we were able to break the world record for Most Shoes Collected to be Recycled.
How does someone accumulate SO many pairs of shoes?
Kathy's father grew ill three years ago and after passing away she wanted to do something good in his honor because he was a man who liked to serve people. "Shoes, I have shoes I can give away" she thought and so began her search of where she could donate them. Then the spark came...someone suggested to her to do a shoe drive and so it began. For the last three years Kathy has driven all of the eastern Nebraska collecting shoes. Girl Scout troops, races, friends, family.....you name it, she poured all of her heart & soul into finding soles!
June 2nd, 2014 Kathy's husband passed away. Her mission...to get these shoes on people's feet.
She knew it would be a while until she could continue the drive again and could not bear the thought of the shoes sitting in her storage while there are people in need.
Amidst her own pain, her heart was aching for others and the longing to put shoes on the feet of people in need to change their lives.
This is Heart & Sole.
It took us six hours to load the shoes and Kathy was with us every step of the way as we overloaded a U-Haul and ended up tying the rest on top of our vehicle. As we loaded shoes she told us stories of her dad and husband. Her kids, friends, the people she met during shoes drives...she had been dubbed "The Shoe Lady" and rightfully so.
As we loaded shoes, the Guinness World Records medal hung from her neck the entire time. I will always remember that.
We unloaded the shoes at Eco Stores in Lincoln and finally finished around 3am, a total of 11 hours. I reference this because it was a time of joy and energy. If any kind of thought of tiredness rolled in to my mind, immediately I thought of how hard Kathy worked for 3 Years....3 YEARS.
When I talk about Give Shoes, Give Love, this is it right here. There is ALWAYS so much more than shoes being collected. That Sunday our family was able to collect a memory, share in another's memory and receive the legacy she was passing on to share with thousands around the world.
Thank you Kathy Buhrman.
Love People and Live Your Dreams,
Maggi
Your Mrs. Great Plains International 2014
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| Kathy and I before we started loading the shoes celebrating her donation! |
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| Post shoes loading in the U-Haul. It was some very strategic packing :) |
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| We ran out of room in the U-Haul and thanks to my Haiti travel seeing Tap Taps, we strapped them on top of our car! |
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| The FINAL addition to the container at Eco Stores who hosted it at their store. That is a lot of shoes friends! |
