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By TRACIE WHITE / Special
to the Mercury News
take
a moment to walk in the shoes of a homeless child.
They might be too small, pinching tiny feet. They might be too
big, a hand-me-down from a sibling or the closest size available
in a bin with other used, donated pairs. In winter, they most certainly
are damp or wet.
Homeless people -- individuals, families with kids -- travel primarily
by foot. Ill-fitting, worn out shoes make their circumstances even
harder to bear, and donations from Wish Book readers can make a
difference.
Melissa Siebert has a story that illustrates this most basic need.
She had been working just a few months at the Georgia Travis Center,
a day shelter for homeless women and children in San Jose.
It was mid-December, and the center was full of people seeking
shelter from the cold and wet. Siebert noticed one family that came
in several times. The children were small, the oldest about 5, the
youngest a 4-month-old baby.
"The mom would ask me to watch her kids for a few minutes while
she took a shower,'' says Siebert. "The kids were absolutely soaked.
They were coming in dirty and wet.''
Eventually the mom began to open up and told Siebert the family
had been homeless three months, ever since the baby was about a
month old. Most nights they slept in their Pinto -- day in the driver's
seat, mom in the passenger seat with the baby on the floor at her
feet, the other three children in the back. The car smelled of dirty
diapers and old food.
Siebert offered to help wash the children while their mother made
calls to try and find temporary shelter.
"When I went to take their shoes off, they were soaked through
and the 3-year-old started to cry. I took her wet socks off and
the bottom of her feet were just raw. She was crying because her
feet hurt so badly,'' she says. "It was the same with all the children.
With them being out in the cold and rain all day and night, their
little bodies never got totally dry.''
Siebert put their shoes on top of a heater. She found dry clothes
for the children, but the shelter didn't have shoes. The family
left that day with the same worn out, damp footwear.
Siebert was devastated.
Later, at home, Siebert told her parents about her day. When she
got to the part about the damp shoes, her mother went to her purse
and pulled out her wallet. Siebert bought all the children new shoes
at Mervyn's that night.
When the family came to the shelter the next day, the mom's eyes
welled up with tears when she saw the shoes.
Siebert eventually helped the family find shelter, but she lost
track of them soon after. Then one day, she received an envelope
in the mail.
"Thank you so much because you gave my little babies shoes for
their feet,'' read the note. Siebert has kept it to this day.
Wish Book readers could help InnVision, which operates the Georgia
Travis Center, provide homeless individuals with one of the most
basic yet important necessities. Each donation
of $25 to the Step Ahead Shoe Project will buy shoes and shoe
vouchers.
For
more information on the Georgia
Travis Center, go to
www.innvision.org.
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