Can collections be useful?

Question1: How many pairs of shoes did Greg want to have by Christmas 2006?

Question2: Now, how many pairs of shoes have been donated by SOS?

Greg Woodborn, a university student, spends a lot of time cleaning sports shoes. Some of them once belonged to him; some belonged to his friends. But soon the shoes will have new owners, poor children in the USA and 20 other countries, thanks to Greg’s Share Our Soles（鞋底）（SOS）charity.

Greg was a high school running star in a small town in California. He had to stop running for months because his knee was injured. “I started thinking about all the things I got from running, the health, the friendships and the confidence.” he says. “And I realized there are children who don’t even have shoes.”

Greg collected his own sports shoes and then called his friends and the town. His aim was to have 100 pairs by Christmas 2006. When the number climbed to more than 500 pairs, Greg knew that he could collect sports shoes all year round.

Now he has set up collection boxes in his town. So far, SOS has collected and donated more than 3,000 pairs of shoes. And Greg has cleaned almost all of them. “People think of it as duty work,” he says, “but I like doing it, because I feel happy when I’m doing it. It’s not work I want to pass on to someone else.”

In just three years, Greg has started three branches（分部） of SOS and there are more and more sports shoes.

For many poor children who have received the shoes mean opportunity. Two young boys in southern California used to go to school on alternate days（隔日） because they both shared a pair of shoes. They were too big for one boy and too small for the other. Thanks to SOS, each brother received his own pair of shoes. The boys now go to school every day. When they graduate, they say they will help others, just as Greg helped them.