Barefoot Campaign

Food For The Poor Supports TOMS “One Day Without Shoes”

COCONUT CREEK, Fla. (April 28, 2014)– Food For The Poor encourages you to participate in the seventh annual One Day Without Shoes event on April 29. One Day Without Shoes is the annual day to go without shoes to raise global awareness for children’s health and education.

As part of Food For The Poor’s One Day Without Shoes Event, supporters are asked to bare their soles for a chance to win a Footprints in the Sand keychain. Upload your photos to Food For The Poor’s Facebook page to enter. Instagram and Twitter users also can participate, and are asked to include #ffpbarefeet and @TOMS #withoutshoes. A toolkit with stickers and banners is available for download from One Day Without Shoes’ website at www.toms.com/onedaywithoutshoes. The contest ends April 30, and the winners will be announced May 1.

Anyone can get involved. You can take part by doing whatever it is you do during the day; just do it without shoes! Go to work, wash your car, play at the park – and when people ask why you are not wearing shoes, tell them about One Day Without Shoes.

Children and their families in many developing countries do not enjoy the same opportunities we do in the United States. A pair of new shoes, in addition to meeting the basic needs of a child, can increase their confidence, and lead to better opportunities including improved school attendance and health.

In developing nations, wearing shoes also helps to protect from cuts and debilitating infections and diseases like podoconiosis, which, according to the World Health Organization, affects more than 4 million people in at least 15 countries. 

Food For The Poor, named by The Chronicle of Philanthropy as the largest international relief and development organization in the nation, does much more than feed millions of the hungry poor in 17 countries of the Caribbean and Latin America. This interdenominational Christian ministry provides emergency relief assistance, clean water, medicines, educational materials, homes, support for orphans and the aged, skills training and micro-enterprise development assistance, with more than 95 percent of all donations going directly to programs that help the poor. For more information, please visit www.FoodForThePoor.org.