Volunteers pitch in for final push of shoe drive for Cedar Rapids no-cost clinic

CEDAR RAPIDS — How do you load more than 21,000 pairs of shoes into a semi truck? One bag at a time.

That’s what volunteers did Friday at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Cedar Rapids. Forming a “bucket brigade,” they moved 868 bags containing 21,700 pairs of shoes that were donated to help Cedar Rapids’ His Hands Free Clinic, which provides free care to people without insurance.

The shoes were collected during a drive in June. His Hands Free Clinic will receive money based on the total weight of the pairs of shoes that were donated.

In total, 24,127 pairs of shoes were donated, the clinic announced last month.

While the clinic did not reach its goal of setting a new world record for the most shoes collected in a week — 250,001 — it did gather more than larger cities that have held similar drives.

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The shoes that were loaded on a truck Friday will be taken to Orlando, Florida, and shipped out across the world by Funds2Orgs, which works with small businesses in developing countries to provide inventory for them to sell.

In addition to the shoes that will be shipped out, His Hands Free Clinic’s drive provided 500 pairs of shoes locally to Willis Dady Works, Mission of Hope, Catherine McAuley Center, St. Vincent de Paul, Metro Catholic Outreach, and residents of the flooded Rock Valley area.

"I'd like to thank all the volunteers that helped pick up and sort shoes and the businesses that had boxes in their locations,“ said Dawn Brouwers, development director at His Hands Free Clinic. ”We would have never collected and processed so many shoes without their help. I estimate that 500 volunteer hours by 75 different volunteers made this project work.“

His Hands Free Clinic, founded in 1992, provides for the “physical, emotional and spiritual needs of those without adequate resources.” The services provided by the nonprofit clinic include: medical, dental, chiropractic, women’s health, physical therapy, durable medical equipment, spiritual care, patient advocacy/social work services, prescription assistance and off-site optical.