Graffiti 2009-10

YOLANDA HO

After initially hearing about the devastating earthquake in Haiti, my reaction was to see if we could change the charity this year to the Red Cross. But, of course, we made a promise to the ‘Not For Sale charity’, and were determined to help end slavery around the world. Charity week began, and once again I saw how amazing and giving NT students could be. Of course the hectic week came to an end eventually, and I couldn’t help but feel as if some of the money I spent at charity week could have went to a Red Cross somewhere, helping those in Haiti. Guilt and helplessness was something that I didn’t expect to feel at the end of charity week, but I did.

Despite all of that, life at NT moved on, and the hype about Haiti died down…a little anyway. On Friday, January 22nd, Alex McRobert and I went on our usual Starbucks run during our period two spare. As we were paying for our drinks, one of the baristas told us that Softmoc was doing a shoe drive for Haiti and really needed help boxing shoes. We sat down and began to chat, but in about two minutes knew that we could be using our time better.

When we walked into Softmoc, we were greeted by, no, not the store manager, but about 438290432 million used shoes inside plastic bags, reuseable bags, and cardboard boxes. The manager told us that local schools, buisnesses and individuals had been collecting and donating used shoes for Haiti. This fundraiser was not small-scale: the Softmoc at Yonge and Eglinton was just one of many locations across North America that Soles4Souls, a charity founded in 2005 to assist those affected by the Tsunami, was being run out of with hopes that those in Haiti who have lost everything would have at least a decent pair of shoes.

We were sold. In about four seconds, Alex and I tossed our bags and jackets in the back of the store, and began sorting through the piles of used shoes; counting each pair and packing them into moving boxes. After an hour of vigourous packing, we glanced over at the shoe pile – it had grown. Between the two of us, the two employees and the manager, we couldn’t imagine how all of the shoes could be packed…by 9 pm…that night. So we did what any other teenage girl would do. We got onto our cellphones and mass texted everyone on our contact lists…that was a total of like…10 people…combined.

As 3 o clock rolled around, Alex and I smelled like feet, and had probably packed over 1000 pairs of shoes. We began to lose hope that help from other NT students would come… we turned to our phones again and realized that we had no friends.

3:15 rolled around, and we finally got some calls back. At around 3:30 about about 5 other NT students came and more progress was made. By around 5:30, all of the shoes were packed, and sealed, ready to be shipped out to the headquarters in Alabama on Saturday morning. From there, they’d be organized into better groupings – buy size and style, for example. Then, the shoes would be shipped to Haiti.

Across Canada, some 200 000 pairs of shoes were donated through the Soles4Souls campaign. Between the 10 people working at that Softmoc, 8500 pairs of shoes were safely shipped to Haiti the next day. All we did was spend about 4 hours of our day packing shoes. So NT, are you willing to give up a couple hours to make a difference?